


Suits

by strange_seas



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Bodyguard!AU, M/M, royal!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 02:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17133722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strange_seas/pseuds/strange_seas
Summary: Minseok is the longtime protector and voice of reason to a young prince. When Luhan is brought in for backup, Minseok is torn between resentment and fascination.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LiveJournal on April 19, 2014. In which Korea has a royal family.

The prince is only fifteen, and nursing a broken heart, when Minseok first comes to the palace.  
  
"Your Highness," the royal secretary says outside the door of the teenager's study. "Your new bodyguard is here."  
  
There is no direct reply, but Minseok can hear murmurs from within the room. The royal secretary bows and opens the door for him, hand held out to signal that he may enter. Minseok slides in noiselessly, the way he has been trained to do at the academy for the past four years.  
  
Inside, it's dark, and the prince is standing over his desk with his back to the bodyguard. In both hands, he clutches the glossy receiver of an antique telephone, and he speaks into it in a quiet, urgent tone.  
  
"It wasn't us," the prince is saying. "You know that, don't you? Good...yes, I trust you, too." His voice shakes. "Don't forget me, Aki."  
  
Minseok registers the foreign name and infers that the person on the other line is the Japanese ambassador's daughter. The papers paint her as a delicate girl with bright eyes, seen regularly in the company of Prince Sehun, the second in line to Korea's throne. The papers also tell of the volatile territory disputes between Korea and Japan, which have spurred public dissent and countless demonstrations in front of the palace.  
  
Yesterday's front page story had to do with two bomb threats. The first was at the Japanese embassy in Seoul. The second was at the Japanese ambassador's private residence. His wife was out, but his pretty fourteen-year-old, Aki, was not. She, the housekeeper, and the family's two pet beagles were evacuated by the police.  
  
If the terrorists who set up the whole thing simply wanted to send a message, they succeeded. Today's news reveals that the Japanese ambassador and his entire family (beagles included) are flying back to Tokyo.  
  
The prince stammers into the receiver, "Will...will we ever see each other again?"  
  
Even on home ground, the King and Queen fear for their safety and that of their sons Joonmyun and Sehun, should there be retaliation from angry Japanese residents. Minseok got the call last night--the one telling him he is part of the team of elite security the palace is bringing in to bulk up the royal guard.  
  
It's a tall order, but Minseok is ready. He graduated a year ago at the top of his class, gaining experience in the months since as short-term security for various high-ranking officials. He is strong, fearless, and intuitive. He might not be as imposing as your average bodyguard, but he considers the medium height and baby face his natural camouflage.  
  
He is also twenty-three, just eight years older than Sehun. He suspects that's why he has been paired with the teenager, and not with Crown Prince Joonmyun, who is only a year younger than Minseok.  
  
The prince mumbles, "I like you, Aki."  
  
Minseok feels sorry for him, sorry for the premature heartache the boy has to go through because of political ties that bind and then break.  
  
"Will you wait for me?" Sehun asks. His voice grows adamant. "I'll come for you when I grow up, I promise. Just wait for me?"  
  
The answer seems to be an agreeable one, because the prince looks relieved. "Okay," he murmurs. "Okay." But the interlude is short-lived, because in the next moment his expression turns stricken. "What? No, don't--as in, right now?" His voice grows desperate around the edges, and in a panic, he says again, "Don't forget me!"  
  
A few seconds of silence tick past, and Minseok can't really tell what's going on, what the girl might be saying over the line. Finally, Sehun very quietly says, "Goodbye, Aki-chan," and hangs up the phone.  
  
That's when he turns around and finds Minseok standing impassively at the door, not having moved an inch since shutting it behind him.  
  
"Who are you?" the prince asks dully.  
  
"Kim Minseok, Your Highness." Minseok bends in a low, respectful bow. "I'm your new bodyguard. At your service."  
  
"Have you been there the whole time?" There is no bite to Sehun's words, only a quiver in his bottom lip.  
  
"Yes, Your Highness."  
  
"So you heard the whole thing."  
  
"Yes, Your Highness."  
  
"I should get used to this, huh?" Sehun looks down at his feet. "Never being alone."  
  
Minseok bows again, apologetic. "I'm sorry, Your Highness."  
  
"She had to go," Sehun tells him out of nowhere. When the young boy looks up at Minseok, his eyes are shiny and wet. "She had to board her plane."  
  
Minseok keeps mum, unsure of how to respond.  
  
"She's important to me. Aki." Sehun swallows hard. "I'm--I feel awful. You might see me crying." He clears his throat, draws himself up. "But I never cry otherwise, just so you know. This is, this is a one-time thing."  
  
"That's quite all right, Your Highness," Minseok says swiftly, using the gentlest voice in his repertoire. "I won't let anybody in." On instinct, he adds, "I am sure you are just as important...to Aki."  
  
The prince almost smiles at him, the corner of his mouth quirking imperceptibly. Then his back is to Minseok once again. He sinks into his swivel chair, places his arms on his desk and burrows his face into his arms, and Minseok knows he's hiding his tears.  
  
In response, the bodyguard squares his shoulders, crosses his hands in front of him, and plants his feet a little more firmly into the ground. Protective, but at ease. For who knows how long, Minseok stands guard by the door, a pillar of comfort in his pressed black suit. He lets no one else see the prince in mourning.  
  
  
  
  
If young Sehun grows up a little wild, it's only because his older brother is being the quintessential prince in comparison.  
  
Less than a year after Minseok joins the royal staff, Joonmyun graduates summa cum laude, with a double major in economics and history. When he walks onstage at his solemn commencement ceremony, Sehun shoots up from his seat in the front row to wallop and whistle. The King and the Crown Prince grin indulgently as the Queen sighs in resignation.  
  
Every day, as Joonmyun sifts through the nitty gritty of his responsibilities, Sehun will peek into his study and pull faces until Joonmyun spots him through the cluster of advisors in the room. The young prince will wave his sporting equipment of choice through the crack in the door--soccer ball, riding crop--and gesture for Joonmyun to follow him. His brother only smiles, sticks out his tongue when nobody's looking, and goes back to the pile of paperwork on his desk.  
  
Sehun never misses an opportunity to spar with Joonmyun's bodyguard, Chanyeol, who is a master of martial arts. Even when Chanyeol is on duty. Especially when Chanyeol is on duty.  
  
"Your Highness," Minseok will murmur when the playfighting runs long and Chanyeol starts to look a little worn. "That's enough for today."  
  
To his credit, Sehun has grown to heed what his bodyguard says.  
  
Even when Minseok tells him it isn't a good idea to sneak off to that underground dance party Sehun's been eying on the Internet (too shady).  
  
Even when Minseok tells him to  _stay cool_  after a drunken foreigner insults the hallowed name of Sehun's favorite football team, and Sehun's fists twitch at his sides (not worth it).  
  
Even when Minseok tells him it might be time to head home from one of his cousin's scandalous soirees--the ones that lay out the refreshments on naked models and end up in a game of strip Twister (too many cameras to confiscate). Prince Jongin will tease him for being a pushover later on, but still, Sehun will obey.  
  
For all his mischief, the prince is a good kid. He calls Minseok "hyung," not "Kim," and is always asking Minseok to call him Sehun, not Your Highness. Minseok appreciates the gesture, but finds this foray into first-name basis too fresh for his liking. Whenever he declines, Sehun sulks. To appease him, Minseok makes an effort to speak to his charge in a friendly, familiar tone--not the official, trained timbre he uses with the other members of the royal family.  
  
They share a deep trust. Neither Sehun nor Minseok are particularly forthcoming about private matters, but Minseok understands the youth much more than he lets on. He knows, for instance, that for no particular reason, the prince will sometimes withdraw into himself, preferring not to see or speak to anyone. Minseok pretends to leave on an errand, saying he'll be back shortly--but he just stations himself right outside the door and gives Sehun a full hour alone. When he slides back into the room, Sehun will grin and ask, "Where've you been, hyung?"  
  
Minseok also knows that Sehun would rather be an explorer than a prince; that he pretends not to care about school but spends the quiet hours before bed poring over geography books, memorizing the capital cities of every country on the planet. Minseok has seen the boot-shaped birthmark on Sehun's arm countless times, the prince holding it out proudly to declare, "Look, hyung. Italy."  
  
At the academy, they are taught discipline, respect, precision, and loyalty. They are not taught fondness, the kind of emotion Minseok has only ever associated with his little sister. But he is fond of his charge, very much so, and Sehun idolizes him in turn. In fact, when Joonmyun jokingly asks the royal maknae whom he likes better, his own hyung or Minseok, Sehun will pick at his fingernails and mutter, "You're equal."  
  
  
  
  
The day Minseok comes down with swine flu is the day Luhan comes to the palace.  
  
It's been five years since Minseok accepted his royal post. Sehun is almost fully grown at twenty. The bodyguard used to have three inches on the prince--now, Sehun's got two on him.  
  
In all their time together, Minseok has never fallen this ill.  
  
The King and Queen have him admitted to the royal hospital, despite Minseok's feeble protests to take him to any of the civilian establishments. He has an alarming fever and a hacking cough. The doctors are forced to quarantine him. No one is allowed to visit, not even Prince Sehun (who kicks up a huge fuss about it, unbeknownst to his bodyguard).  
  
Minseok's superior at the agency tells him they've got the prince covered. "We're sending one of our Chinese guys as your substitute. Lots of experience. Spotless record. Don't worry, Kim."  
  
Minseok certainly hopes so, because Sehun is scheduled to appear at a parade today. The political turmoil between Japan and Korea has simmered to a low boil over the years, so that's not why Minseok is frustrated with himself for getting sick. There's a new threat now, an internal one: the morbidly-obsessed fan.  
  
Since Sehun turned eighteen, the media has felt legally entitled to a piece of him, and the prince has racked up an enormous following in Asia.  
  
It wasn't so bad when Joonmyun was his age (although he was very popular). But Sehun's generation is different. It's been fed on celebrity worship and social media since infancy, and never quite understood how certain things, like privacy, could be beyond its reach. The prince is dashing and exciting, just like an idol, making him an easy target of infatuation. "Royal bad boy," the press calls him, releasing photos of Sehun smoking in front of a club and keeping company with Seoul's most infamous rich kids (cousin Jongin included). "Punk rock prince," they dub him, when Sehun dyes his hair bleach-blond and gets both ears pierced, much to the chagrin of the Queen (the King tells his son in private that he thinks it's pretty cool).  
  
When Sehun is spotted around the city, the nicer fans might scream and whip out their phones, but the crazy ones give relentless chase and touch, touch, touch.  
  
This is unacceptable to Minseok. He rarely loses his cool, because he's good at his job, and he can get between a senseless sasaeng and the young prince in two shakes. But parades stress him out--the crush of people can't be monitored as stringently as he would like. At any time, an exuberant crowd could easily turn into a dangerous mob.  
  
So when Sehun calls him after the event and ribs, "Hey, hyung, I'm alive!" Minseok doesn't know if he's joking.  
  
"What happened?" Minseok asks.  
  
"Nothing. I waved. They screamed," Sehun replies. "Your sub is pretty awesome. I like him."  
  
Minseok coughs aggressively into his palm.  
  
"Will you be okay, hyung?" Sehun's voice is less jovial now. "They won't let me come--"  
  
"Good," Minseok interrupts, clearing something nasty from his throat. "I'm contagious." He remembers how anxious the prince gets over separations, and adds, "I'll return shortly, Your Highness. I'm sorry for not being there today."  
  
"Just rest, hyung," Sehun says, gentle but authoritative. "The new guy's got me until you come back."  
  
  
  
  
Nine days later, Minseok is released from the hospital, and he meets Luhan for the first time.  
  
"Morning," says the Chinese bodyguard, extending a hand and a warm look. Minseok has just joined him outside the everyday dining hall, where the royal family is having breakfast. Like the rest of palace security, they wear identical black suits. "You must be Minseok."  
  
"Call me Kim," Minseok replies tersely, shaking his hand. The new guy's familiarity is a little off-putting.  
  
"Call me Luhan," the other says, grinning.  
  
"Your surname?" Minseok asks. "I prefer to stick to protocol."  
  
Luhan's grin falters. "Oh, I'm sorry. It's Lu. Last name Lu, first name Han. But in Korea everyone just calls me Luhan. Even the King and Queen." The bodyguard looks hopeful. "You can, too, if you like."  
  
Minseok considers it for a moment, before begrudgingly giving his reply. "All right. I hear we're the same age?"  
  
Luhan nods. "Just turned twenty-eight." His smooth face accommodates a pleasant smile.  
  
_Another pretty boy_ , Minseok observes.  _Just like Sehun and the Crown Prince_. True enough, Luhan is of doe eyes, peachy skin, and soft, floppy hair; he's probably as tall as their charge, and his appearance is nothing like a bodyguard's.  
  
"I don't know how long you're going to be with us," Minseok says abruptly. "But girlfriends aren't allowed to visit the palace, in case you haven't been told."  
  
Luhan smirks. "And boyfriends?"  
  
That gives Minseok pause for a split second. "No boyfriends allowed, either."  
  
"What happens if you sneak them in?" Luhan's expression is playful and conspiratorial, so Minseok can't tell if he's kidding. "Have you ever tried?"  
  
"Of course not," Minseok shoots back. Strangely enough, talking to the new guy is almost like talking to Sehun. "I always stick--"  
  
"--to protocol. Gotcha," Luhan cuts in amiably. "No boyfriend right now, and even if I did, I'd follow the rules." He eyes Minseok curiously. "And you?"  
  
"What about me?"  
  
"Any girlfriend? Boyfriend?" Luhan grins at him again, totally at home in the conversation.  
  
Minseok, on the other hand, is annoyed.  
  
"That's none of your business," he warns, the words coming out sterner than he had intended.  
  
The substitute stiffens, realizing he's overstepped the bounds. He dips his head in apology. "Sorry," he murmurs. "Didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."  
  
Sehun pops his head out the door at that moment, so Minseok doesn't have a chance to address the tiny poke of guilt in his chest.  
  
"Hyung, you're back!" the prince cries enthusiastically. He slings his arm across Minseok's shoulders. "All better now?"  
  
"Yes, Your Highness," Minseok says, considerably less icy. "Thank you for checking up on me every day."  
  
The prince shoots him a pointed look, and Minseok knows he doesn't like being thanked for something so natural.  
  
Sehun turns to their other companion. "Guess what, Luhan-hyung?" His eyes are sparkling. "My mother and father want you with us full-time."  
  
  
  
  
There are three major things Minseok dislikes about his new partner.  
  
The first thing is that he talks too much. By the end of the week, Minseok knows the guy's birthday, the names of his parents, the four cities he grew up in (and therefore, the four languages he speaks), his favorite films and television shows, the last album he downloaded into his iPod, how he takes his coffee--not to mention, why Manchester United is the greatest football team in the universe.  
  
Following this deluge of information, Minseok tells Luhan to minimize the chatter and focus on the job.  
  
"Just making conversation," Luhan says, cheerful and unreadable.  
  
The second thing Minseok dislikes is that Luhan seems to copy everything he does. By the end of a fortnight, Luhan has taken to brushing his hair back from his forehead, neat and sharp, just like Minseok's. Luhan's hands fly to his tie whenever Minseok moves to adjust his own. Luhan's also missing both small black studs he was wearing on their first meeting.  
  
"What happened to your earrings?" Minseok asks in spite of himself.  
  
"You weren't wearing any," Luhan explains, "so I took mine out." He doesn't look at Minseok when he murmurs, "You did say to follow protocol."  
  
When Minseok informs him it's more of a personal preference than an actual regulation, Luhan only shrugs.  
  
The third and most offensive thing is how good Luhan is with Sehun. He knows it's childish, that it's a pro, not a con, but Minseok completely resents him for it, anyway.  
  
One time, Sehun drags them out to an all-night fete with cousin Jongin and Co. Minseok sidles up to the prince at around 2:00AM and suggests, in sotto voce, that it's time they got going.  
  
"Just one more hour," Sehun says out of the side of his mouth. Jongin is already smirking at him from across the poker table.  
  
"You've got an early day tomorrow," Minseok murmurs.  
  
Sehun really doesn't want to go home yet. "Please, hyung?"  
  
"Don't forget, Your Highness," Luhan chimes in out of nowhere, "it's World Geography you've got at 7:00."  
  
Sehun opens his mouth, closes it, and pushes back his seat. "Gotta go, boys," he tells his privileged posse. "It's been fun."  
  
"Works every time," Luhan mutters, tossing Minseok a knowing glance.  
  
Without making eye contact, Minseok mutters back, "I had it handled."  
  
Luhan is surprised by his coldness. "I was only trying to help, Kim," he says in earnest, but Minseok is already striding past him to catch up with the prince.  
  
Another time, in the palace, Minseok returns from a bathroom break and finds Luhan teaching Sehun how to swear in English.  
  
"What's this?" Minseok asks, just as Sehun tries out a confident "Motherfucker!"  
  
Unlike Luhan, Minseok does not speak Mandarin and Japanese in addition to Korean. He does, however, have a perfect grasp of the English language.  
  
Sehun turns to him proudly, like a kid who's just learned to ride a bike. "Hey, hyung, do you know what 'motherfucker' means?" Half of Sehun's face pulls up in a mischievous grin. "It means--"  
  
"Yes, I know, Your Highness," Minseok says placidly. "But you've still got those Agricultural Development readings to finish."  
  
Luhan winces--a tiny narrowing of the eyes, like an unresolved blink.  
  
Sehun blows out his lips. "But they're so boring! And Luhan-hyung said I could take a break." Minseok regards him meaningfully, and the way the prince takes up his textbook and yellow highlighting pen is nothing less than begrudging. "You're no fun."  
  
He's just pouting, the way he usually does when Minseok succeeds in getting him to do something he'd rather not. It's innocent, really.  
  
But when Sehun tells him he isn't fun, it's a fist in Minseok's gut. The soft, creeping texture of fear grazes his skin, cool in its touch. It's a fear that the prince might actually outgrow him someday, and a fear he's never had until now.  
  
Irrational--that's the only word for it. Minseok is frustrated with himself, because he has always used reason as a compass. Lately, however, he's been letting his insecurities best his judgment--and yes, he admits, blaming it all on Luhan. Because if Luhan is anything, he's the cooler, more spontaneous, and in some ways, more capable hyung between the pair of them.  
  
And that's a fact.  
  
A few minutes later, as Sehun pores over his readings, Minseok finds Luhan close to his side. "I know, I know," the new guy says under his breath, eyes downcast. "I shouldn't have distracted him. I should focus on the job. You don't have to scowl at me."  
  
"I'm not--" Minseok starts, but he stops when he hears the dismal chuckle.  
  
"Yeah, actually, you are." Luhan mutters. Sehun cocks a glance over his shoulder, and Luhan grits out the rest through a smile. "As usual."  
  
This bothers Minseok, who has always been polite and gracious--not to mention, fair. But his dislike for his partner is too strong, cloying, like a bad taste in his mouth. So he doesn't apologize, even though he knows he should.  
  
What it all boils down to is this: what took Minseok five years to carefully hone between him and his charge, Luhan has made laughably quick work of. It is, in Minseok's eyes, not an intrusion, but a takeover.  
  
And  _that_ is something Minseok can't help but hold against him.  
  
  
  
  
If there's one thing Minseok likes about Luhan--and he's not yet decided if this counts--it's that the latter knows nothing of Sehun's first love.  
  
The prince doesn't speak about Aki, not to Jongin or his parents or Minseok. But the bodyguard knows he keeps tabs on her. Every few months, Crown Prince Joonmyun will tell his little brother to check his email, and Minseok never misses the look of confidentiality that passes between them.  
  
Later, he will find Sehun staring at his computer screen, mouthing the unfamiliar syllables of a foreign address.  
  
Once, as Sehun dawdles over his schoolwork for the nth time, he asks Minseok a question.  
  
"Hyung?"  
  
"Yes, Your Highness."  
  
"Do you think Aki would like me if she knew me now?"  
  
Minseok humors him. "Why wouldn't she?"  
  
The prince furrows his brow. "I'm different from before."  
  
"How so?"  
  
"You  _know_ , hyung." Sehun twists up his mouth, a little impatiently. "I'm not...nice. Not sweet."  
  
"You're just a little rebellious, like all boys your age. That doesn't make you a bad person."  
  
Sehun bites his lip. "Really?"  
  
Minseok chuckles. "You're a very sweet kid." The intimacy of it makes him clear his throat. "If you don't mind me saying so, Your Highness."  
  
Sehun beams like he's fifteen years old again. He declares, "You're the best, hyung," and Minseok feels the skin of their old camaraderie slipping over him, warm and close.  
  
Luhan waits until Sehun has gone back to crunching numbers before side-eying Minseok. Slowly. Carefully. Curiously.  
  
"Spit it out," Minseok grunts without meeting his partner's eye.  
  
Luhan smiles, so openly pleased at the small attention, Minseok can actually  _feel_ the movement.  
  
It must be said that no matter how many times he speaks to Luhan with frost in his tone or completely freezes him out, the Chinese bodyguard simply dusts himself off and tries again. Minseok hasn't decided if Luhan is overcompensating, or if he's just stupidly good-natured.  
  
"Who's Aki?" Luhan whispers.  
  
It's like the sound of a harp in Minseok's ear.  
  
"The prince hasn't told you about Aki?" he asks, fighting to keep childish hope from coating his voice.  
  
Luhan shakes his head.  
  
Minseok's chest swells with pride.  
  
It's in a show of good will towards Sehun that Minseok uncharacteristically takes the time to explain. "She's a girl the prince used to know," he murmurs. Luhan nods, eyes alert. "Boyhood love."  
  
Luhan mouths an  _ahh_ in understanding. That is followed, almost bashfully, by a "Thanks."  
  
"I thought he would have told you by now," Minseok admits.  
  
"He doesn't talk to me about things like that," Luhan tells him. "Just you." Then he's saying something in an even lower tone, and Minseok thinks he hasn't heard him right when the words trickle into his ears. "Because you're special."  
  
He snaps his head to the side. He squints at Luhan  _really_ hard. "Pardon?" he tosses out for good measure.  
  
But Luhan only gives him a quick, innocent shake of the head and licks the dryness off his lips. Minseok can't get another sidelong glance out of him for the rest of the day.  
  
  
  
  
The marriage talks begin the day after Sehun's twenty-first birthday.  
  
"Darling," the Queen ventures at the breakfast table. "How do you feel about Lady Suzy?"  
  
"Bae?" Sehun clarifies through a mouthful of poached eggs. "She's cool."  
  
"You shouldn't call her Bae, son," the King murmurs behind his paper. "She's nobility."  
  
"But Bae's my buddy."  
  
"And she's  _beautiful_ ," the Queen gushes. "How about we get you two engaged?"  
  
Sehun chokes violently on his food, but holds up a hand when both Minseok and Luhan step in from outside the door.  
  
"I'm fine." The prince wipes his mouth on a table napkin. "And I'm not getting married," he directs at the Queen. "I'm still in school!"  
  
"So?" the Queen trills. "You're twenty-one. Royals have always wed early. Now!" She taps her chin with an elegant fingertip. "If not little Suzy, then how about General Lee's daughter? Ha Yi, isn't it?"  
  
"Who's...do you mean Lee Hi?" Sehun laughs raucously. "She's  _seventeen_. You're basically turning me into a public offender."  
  
The Queen's mouth purses. "Oh, dear, you're right." Her fingertip rests against her lips. "And the Prime Minister's girl? Seohyun? I know she's a little older than you but three years is nothing, really--you might as well be the same age. And the royal secretary tells me she comes to see you ride at the club..."  
  
"Actually," Sehun drawls, "she comes to see Luhan-hyung. Jongin reckons it's a pretty lethal crush." He snorts. "She won't give him the time of day."  
  
"Is that so?" the Queen sighs, shooting a glance at the door. The sound of two throats clearing filters into the dining hall.  
  
"Yep," Sehun triumphs. "So let's drop this."  
  
The Queen clucks disapprovingly. "But it really is time you started considering marriage. Or at the very least, a serious relationship." Her expression turns honey-sweet. "You're so  _handsome_ , darling, and you've never even been kissed!"  
  
"Mom." Sehun's tone is a warning.  
  
"She's right, son," the King puts in, fluffing out his paper and folding it down into a neat square. "Your mother and I have decided to start looking for a suitable match. We were just letting you know."  
  
"Dad!" Sehun whines.  
  
"I don't see what the big fuss is about," the King rumbles pleasantly. He rises from his chair, tops off his tea, and pecks the Queen on the forehead. "Your brother got married last year. Look how happy he is."  
  
"But he and Jung were together for years," Sehun disputes. "It's totally different from marrying someone you were set up with."  
  
"So make sure to get to know your someone before you get married," the King replies, a tease curling in his voice. "And stop calling your sister-in-law Jung. What does your generation have against calling ladies by their names?"  
  
"Such a pretty name, too," the Queen muses, picking at a strawberry tart. "Jessica."  
  
"If you don't want us to set you up," the King adds, "you could very well make the choice yourself." He smiles at the consternation on his son's face, and his own creases with fine lines of wisdom. "No one's stopping you from finding love, Sehun."  
  
  
  
  
The prince gets it into his head to run away to Japan only two days later. Of course, the first people he tells are Minseok and Luhan.  
  
"Just for a few months," Sehun says easily, like he's talking about sleeping over at a friend's. "Six, maybe seven. A year, tops."  
  
"Absolutely not," Minseok replies. "Absolutely not."  
  
"No, really, hyung," Sehun pushes. "It'll be great."  
  
"Your Highness, you can't just relocate to another country to avoid going on marriage dates."  
  
"Who says I'm avoiding them?" Sehun twinkles, and Minseok knows exactly what's going on.  
  
"Aki?" is the only thing he has to ask, and Sehun's face is breaking into a smile like daylight.  
  
Minseok knows he has to be very, very gentle.  
  
"I know you want to see her, Your Highness," he begins. "And that's understandable, and admirable. I get it, really, I do."  
  
"Why do I feel like you're still saying no to me," Sehun mutters, smile chipping.  
  
"You still have your last year of college to finish, and the semester starts very soon." Minseok is lecturing, but trying not to sound like it. "And you know the last year is the busiest. Besides the academic load, you'll start basic training for your royal duties, just like the Crown Prince did. Not as much paperwork, of course, but there's still a lot to learn."  
  
"I don't care about all that," Sehun says petulantly. "You know I've never wanted the princely life."  
  
"I know, Your Highness," Minseok tells him softly. "But that's the only one you've got."  
  
"Hyung, just listen to me, okay?" Sehun's brows knit together, and his eyes look dangerously similar to the time when Minseok first met him. Lonely. "I told her I'd come find her when I grew up. And I'm all grown up now, like the Queen said. So I'm gonna go find her."  
  
"Your Highness--"  
  
"And you and Luhan-hyung can come with me. I really want you to," Sehun continues. "But you can't stop me." His eyes hold Minseok's in a soft entreaty. "So don't. Please?"  
  
Minseok presses his lips together. This is going to be harder than he thought.  
  
"You know, Your Highness," Luhan says quietly from where he has been standing, a little apart from them. "You could just ask your parents for permission."  
  
Sehun blinks.  
  
Minseok would resent Luhan right now if he wasn't a little embarrassed about not coming up with the obvious solution.  
  
  
  
  
Of course, the King says yes--to Sehun's trip as a whole, not necessarily to the duration of it.  _That_ will be decided by his mother.  
  
"Attaboy," he says, when Sehun shyly mentions Aki. "Go get her." And in a softer tone, "Tell her father that his old friend misses him."  
  
The Queen is more practical. She is the fine sieve through which Sehun's plans much pass, grain by grain. The details of his spur-of-the-moment sojourn are turned over and over in her deft hands until they are worn.  
  
"So, you're going to Kyoto?"  
  
"Yup."  
  
"Where will you be staying?"  
  
"At this ryokan. Yes, it's safe--it's in a residential neighborhood. And see, it's got five stars on TripAdvisor."  
  
"You'll be taking Kim and Luhan with you, of course."  
  
"Naturally."  
  
"And when will you see Aki?"  
  
"I don't know...when it's convenient for her."  
  
"She's still in college?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"You shouldn't go see her on campus, you know. You don't want those fanatics of yours after her."  
  
"I know."  
  
"And she's apprenticing as a tea ceremony master, you said?"  
  
"Yes, she is."  
  
"And you'll be visiting the teahouse?"  
  
"Yeah, I mean, I'm not--if she--as long as that's okay. That's the plan."  
  
"I see. And Kim and Luhan will chaperone at all times."  
  
"Well, not at  _all_ times..."  
  
"That's not a question."  
  
"...Fine."  
  
Eventually, the Queen agrees on the condition that Sehun will be back to resume his schooling in three months.  
  
"Three! How about four?" he bargains.  
  
"Three, young man. No later," she says in a disciplinarian's voice.  
  
"All right," Sehun answers good-naturedly.  
  
The voice gentles. "Good luck, darling."  
  
Outside the door, where they are pretending not to listen, Minseok and Luhan snigger at the same thing.  
  
"'Darling' when she wants something," Minseok begins.  
  
"'Young man' when  _he_ wants something," Luhan concludes.  
  
They exchange boyish grins.  
  
Minseok is the first to notice what's happening. Luhan is either oblivious or content; his mouth and the corners of his eyes tipping in the same direction--up.  
  
When Minseok shrinks back, frowns, and turns away, he doesn't notice how quickly his partner's face falls.  
  
  
  
  
They arrive in Kyoto in February, on a brisk winter's day. The skyline is a whir of muted blue-gray-white outside the window of their first-class express train from Kansai Airport. Minseok soaks it all in, and he doesn't notice how he's already pressing his fingers up against the glass.  
  
The ryokan is incredible--serene and elegant and proud, with winged tile roofs and bamboo-framed paper walls that whisper when touched. There's an expanse of garden around it that Minseok can only imagine is as green as an emerald in the proper season. It's as much of a treasure inside, ancient tradition and modern amenities blending seamlessly to make a second home.  
  
Minseok already thought it was a good idea to book the entire place (for the prince's safety and privacy), but now, he's even more thankful they have the ryokan to themselves. The staff is so discreet, they seem to spirit away immediately following check-in.  
  
Of course, as soon as Minseok, Luhan, and Sehun have been escorted to their own rooms with their luggage, the prince wastes no time.  
  
"Let's go see Aki," he says.  
  
He's already gone incognito, his face half-hidden underneath a black skull mask and a snapback covering most of his blonde hair. He has the address of Aki's teahouse saved everywhere--on his laptop, his mobile phone. He reaches into the pocket inside his coat, and he's got it in there, too. This one's been handwritten on a map, and it comes with a plotted-out route from the hotel to the teahouse.  
  
"All right, Your Highness," Minseok says, shrugging on the same thick black duffle coat he'd only just hung up. Underneath it, he's dressed not in a suit, but in casual clothes, so as not to attract attention. He hears the snow falling softly outside, and he bundles himself up with extra care.  
  
If there's one enemy Minseok has never quite learned to vanquish, it's the cold.  
  
Luhan's waiting for them downstairs. He's in dark jeans and black boots, with a plaid muffler wrapped around his neck. His coat is navy, and that is the only thing that differentiates it from Minseok's.  
  
Minseok is already too cold to care.  
  
They walk to the closest subway station, and Minseok has to grit his teeth to keep them from chattering.  
  
They speed through the station, buy tickets, and hop into their train. Minseok blows hot into his palms and rubs them together.  
  
They file out several stops later, and Sehun realizes it would have been better to take the bus directly. The station is a five-block walk from Aki's teahouse.  
  
"Where's the closest bus stop?" Luhan asks, peering into the map.  
  
"It's...six...blocks away?" Sehun's smile shapes itself into an awkward square. "This is sort of a traffic-protected area."  
  
"We should start walking, then," Minseok pipes up, never a complainer. "You don't want to miss Aki while she's at work."  
  
The sidewalks they traverse are lined with quaint, interesting shops, the kind Minseok would love to duck into, one by one, and peruse. But the wind nips at every exposed bit of skin on his face and neck, and it weasels its way into his bones, so all he can think of right now is how he'd love to be back at the ryokan, sipping hot barley tea on the warm tatami flooring.  
  
"Do you--do you want my coat?" Luhan asks softly.  
  
They are walking side by side, with Sehun diligently consulting his map in front of them.  
  
Minseok shakes his head.  
  
"You look half-frozen," Luhan tries again. "And I'm totally fine."  
  
Minseok gnaws on his lip and meets Luhan's gaze with doubt.  
  
"Winters in Beijing were brutal," the bodyguard tells him. "And my best friend lived in Changsha, which is pretty much the East Pole. So I'm used to the cold."  
  
"I won't take your coat," Minseok mumbles. "But...thanks."  
  
"Take this, at least." Luhan tugs at the muffler draped loose over his neck and winds it close around Minseok's. He tucks the ends into Minseok's coat and props up his collar. "All right? It's just a scarf."  
  
It takes a beat, but Minseok is nodding sheepishly and muttering his appreciation. Luhan is kind, and he knows exactly why that makes him feel ashamed.  
  
The teahouse sneaks up on them on the right, after twenty minutes of walking. It's a modest place, easy to miss in a narrow alleyway, and only marked by a small wooden sign over the door that reads "En." The wall next to the entrance is painted black and lined with a neat, unbroken row of bamboo stalks. There's a window, too, framed with wood and lined with paper, just like at the ryokan.  
  
Underneath Luhan's muffler, which he has pulled up to cover his nose and mouth, Minseok is smiling. This looks like the perfect place to stop in from the cold.  
  
A roundish woman in a coral kimono opens the door and steps out. "Konnichiwa," she greets them, and that's the last thing Minseok understands before she launches into a cheerful volley of Japanese.  
  
Luckily, it is Luhan she is looking at, and he converses with her for a few moments before turning to the prince. "I told her you're looking for Aki, Your Highness, and she's here." Sehun's eyes widen. "But she--" and Luhan smiles politely at the woman, "--is asking if you have an appointment?"  
  
"Appointment?"  
  
"Yes, Your Highness," Luhan says. "This teahouse is by appointment only."  
  
Sehun opens his mouth as if to say something, but his head only tips to the side, and his lips stay pursed.  
  
Minseok hoists himself up from underneath the scarf. "You didn't know, Your Highness?"  
  
Sehun shakes his head.  
  
The woman says something to Luhan, who nods and repeats the Japanese word for yes. "She says Aki's got a tea ceremony in ten minutes, Your Highness, and that she's very sorry but we need to clear the entrance for all the other guests."  
  
"Can you ask her to tell Aki that it's me?" Sehun musters. "Tell her it's..."  
  
"No names, Your Highness," Minseok murmurs. "No one outside the palace knows that you're even out of the country."  
  
The prince is at a loss. "Okay. Okay, then, just tell her--"  
  
The window slides opens and a head pokes out. It's a girl with a soft face and a swathe of black hair gathered in a chignon at the nape of her neck. She starts to say something to the roundish woman, until she notices the three men standing in the pathway. She dips her head thrice and greets each of them in Japanese, before speaking to her co-worker.  
  
The woman replies swiftly, and she bows to Luhan, then Sehun, then Minseok, before moving to enter. Minseok has just noticed that she's shivering, and he guesses the girl has asked her to come in from the chill.  
  
"Aki," Sehun says. "It's me."  
  
The girl turns to look at him, but her face only registers mild confusion.  
  
"Hello," she replies, using formal Korean. "I'm sorry, but you are...?"  
  
Sehun unhooks the mask from behind one ear, then tugs it off the other. "It's me," he repeats. "Sehun-ah."  
  
  
  
  
The reunion does not go well.  
  
Because he's nervous, Sehun ends up calling En Teahouse "a tiny little place in the middle of nowhere" (he meant "charming" and "secluded") and "pretty dark inside" (he only wanted to see more of Aki's face while they were talking).  
  
"This is my sensei's teahouse," Aki says quietly. "It has always been this way."  
  
Sehun is also fidgety, his limbs jerking unpredictably like a wooden puppet's. They haven't been in the teahouse for more than two minutes before he knocks over a display of delicate tea whisks while trying to take off his hat. Two of them are crushed under his boots as he reels back to avoid the rest.  
  
"Don't worry, I'll buy them all," is how the prince says he's sorry. He means well, but it comes out arrogant.  
  
Minseok apologizes for him in Korean, while Luhan does the same in Japanese.  
  
"These tea whisks are handmade from a single piece of bamboo," Aki informs him in the same quiet voice. "They are carved so precisely, the carver can only produce five of them in a whole day's work."  
  
"Do you mean they're expensive?" Sehun asks, not quite getting it. "I brought my credit card with me..."  
  
"They're not expensive," Aki replies, "but they are precious."  
  
Finally, because he is pressed for small talk in the short amount of time they have before Aki's class begins, Sehun stumbles into the final offense.  
  
He asks her, "So you've been studying this tea ceremony stuff for how long now?"  
  
"Almost three years," Aki replies. "I've been training after school since I was eighteen."  
  
"Wow, three  _years_ ," Sehun says, and his voice is an obnoxious clap inside the teahouse's tranquil walls. "Don't you get bored with it?"  
  
Minseok and Luhan grimace at the exact same moment.  
  
Aki only smiles and says, "Not at all."  
  
If Minseok wasn't a bodyguard trained to read facial expressions for intent, he would have probably missed the tiny hardening at the corner of Aki's mouth. Other than that, her bare face betrays nothing but politeness.  
  
"Can I come see you again tomorrow?" Sehun asks when Aki's guests finally arrive. This means he has to put his mask back on.  
  
"I don't think that's a good idea," Aki tells him softly.  
  
"Why not?" Sehun's brow furrows, the way it does when he doesn't get his way. "Are you busy with work again?"  
  
"It's my rest day, Your Highness," she murmurs. Sehun grows rigid when his title falls from her lips.  
  
"Why are you calling me that?" he demands. "You know you don't have to. And you never used to--don't you remember?"  
  
"I do remember," Aki says. "But you're not who you used to be."  
  
  
  
  
Sehun shuts himself into his room when they get back to the ryokan and tells both his bodyguards he needs some time.  
  
Minseok doesn't even realize Luhan is trailing after him until he slides open the door to his room, nudges off his sneakers, and hears the knock on the door frame.  
  
"Kim," the Chinese bodyguard says uncertainly. "Can I come in?"  
  
The room is warm and Minseok wants to seal the door shut already so it gets even warmer. He answers, "Sure."  
  
Their socked feet scrape soothingly against the woven matting. Minseok pulls off his gloves and slips out of his coat before padding over to the little tea trolley, where he busies himself with the electronic kettle.  
  
"What are your thoughts on this whole situation?" Luhan asks. Minseok notices he hasn't sat down, so he gestures to the upholstered throw pillows by the window. Luhan arranges himself on them carefully and looks back with rapt attention. There is also a touch of gratefulness there that Minseok doesn't notice.  
  
"He's just a kid," Minseok replies. "He doesn't know how to woo anyone."  
  
"How would you do it?"  
  
"Me?"  
  
"Yeah." Luhan's looking at him intently. "If you were the prince, how would you get a girl like that?"  
  
Minseok think of his first and only girlfriend, Li Na, whom he'd dated throughout high school and lost his virginity to when they were both sixteen. Aki reminds him a little of her, with her simple beauty, fresh like spring.  
  
"If I were Prince Sehun, I would...act less like Prince Jongin."  
  
Luhan chuckles. "It's like he was possessed earlier. He never acts that way."  
  
"Never," Minseok agrees. "He just wants to impress her, really--"  
  
"--but he just ends up insulting her." Luhan shakes his head. "Times like these, I don't miss being twenty-one." He mutters something else under his breath.  
  
Minseok lets an amused sound escape him. "Speaking from personal experience?"  
  
Luhan balks. "You heard me?"  
  
"'But the same thing happens when you're twenty-nine, anyway.' That's what you said, right?"  
  
The other bodyguard looks uncomfortable, and his tongue skates out between his lips. "Yeah. How'd you--"  
  
"Sharp ears," Minseok replies, tugging on one for emphasis.  
  
An odd feeling comes over him as he's doing it, like it's someone else standing in his place, joking around with his partner. It dawns on him that in the year they've worked together, this is the friendliest he's ever been with Luhan. The hand at his ear drops. Somehow--and he doesn't know when, where, or why--he's let his guard down.  
  
And it's not so bad.  
  
Luhan decides to clear his throat just then, almost like he's thinking the same thing. "Going back to the prince," he says, "I was thinking maybe we should stage an intervention."  
  
Minseok takes to this new direction. "How?"  
  
"You know, give him a few pointers. Show him a few tricks. That sort of thing."  
  
Minseok thinks of Li Na, who'd cried when he'd broken up with her before leaving for the academy, but said she'd always love him. "I don't know," he tells Luhan. "I'm not very good with women."  
  
"Well, I'm not saying  _I_ am," Luhan laughs. "I mean, I prefer men, but--"  
  
"Me, too," Minseok lets slip, just as Luhan concludes, "The same things apply to most relationships."  
  
And then there is silence.  
  
It's similar to the one that had blossomed between him and Li Na, Minseok recalls, the day he'd come out to her. After that, her tears had streamed, and she'd clung to him as he'd held her tight and told her he was sorry.  
  
"You prefer men?" Luhan finally asks, voice levelled and casual.  
  
"Yes," Minseok replies. "But you're right, the same things do apply."  
  
"Yes," Luhan repeats after him. "I didn't know that about you."  
  
Minseok hums, feeling strange again. "So what's the plan?"  
  
Luhan's eyelids flutter a few times. Focus creeps back into his pupils. "The plan. Right. Yes. Okay. Here's what I was thinking."  
  
They chat for another hour, just the two of them, and it's a new record. Sure, they discuss Operation Aki, but they also end up talking about other things. How Minseok's father had also worked for the royal guard, and how his son grew up wanting to be just like Dad. How Luhan had lived around the world as a child--learning to bike in Beijing, falling off skateboards in California, cramming into trains in Tokyo. How, as a budding adult, he'd chosen to stay in Seoul when his parents moved back to China.  
  
"My first year in Korea, my class got to visit the academy on a field trip," Luhan shares. "I don't know why, but before we'd left that day, I'd already decided to attend." He grins lopsidedly. "Good thing they were accepting foreigners when I applied. Would've broken my heart otherwise."  
  
Later, when they've already moved on to another topic, Luhan scratches at his nape and muses, "It's funny how we never met at the academy." He pauses to let that dissolve in the air, and Minseok brushes his thumb against his teacup until Luhan goes on with whatever he was saying.  
  
"I like Manchester, too," Minseok tells him, when football comes up.  
  
"That's awesome," Luhan says, eyes shining and full of pleasure. "That's so great."  
  
Luhan's kind of...great, too. Minseok will admit it. There's no dramatic flourish when he resolves to stop being such a jerk, no triumphant soundtrack to denote the shift, like in the movies. The more he talks with Luhan, the more he realizes there's nothing that deserves it. Simple as that.  
  
"We'll start the operation tomorrow," Luhan declares, right before he leaves. His eyes trail down to Minseok's neck, which is still wrapped in the plaid muffler.  
  
"Oh, right," Minseok says, feeling the weight of the scarf for the first time. "I didn't realize I was still wearing this. Here--" His hands move to take it off. But Luhan shakes his head, and one of his own hands comes up to press the scarf against Minseok's collarbones. He draws it back hurriedly.  
  
"Keep it," Luhan replies, looking away. "I have another one just like it."


	2. Chapter 2

"So let me get this straight," Sehun says the next morning. "You want me to take girl advice...from the two of you?"  
  
"Just a suggestion, Your Highness," Luhan chirps.  
  
"But...no offense, hyung." His eyes flick over to Minseok. "And you, too, hyung. I've just never seen either of you with a date."  
  
"That's because we're always with you." Luhan doesn't skip a beat. "But surely you don't think we haven't had our own relationships."  
  
"I  _know_ , that's not what I'm saying," Sehun huffs. "I guess I just never thought it would come to this."  
  
"Come to what, Your Highness?  
  
The prince's sigh is as deep as a well. "That I'd have to ask my gay hyungs to help me sort out my love life."  
  
"Right," Luhan says on auto-pilot, before it fully sinks in. His eyes bug out. "I'm sorry...what was that, Your Highness?"  
  
"Luhan-hyung, you told me yourself..."  
  
"Yes, yes, I know I did," Luhan cuts in, his eyes ping-ponging between the prince and his partner. "But what about--"  
  
"Minseok-hyung? He's the one who taught me the correct way to say 'gay' and the way to never say it. Remember that time, hyung? Just after you started?" Sehun giggles. "I keep trying to set him up, but he rejects every dude I recommend." His glance in Minseok's direction is cheeky. "You've got high standards, huh, hyung? Should we look for an actor next time?"  
  
"That's enough, Your Highness," is Minseok's toothless response.  
  
The surprise is wearing off, but Luhan is still looking at Minseok, and it's starting to make him nervous.  
  
"What?" The Korean bodyguard cocks an eyebrow.  
  
"I thought it was a secret," Luhan says simply, with one of his many smiles attached. There's a vulnerable quality to this one that Minseok doesn't like. He doesn't know when that started to matter.  
  
It's food for thought, but for another time--because Sehun is slinging his arms over their shoulders and drawing all three of their heads together. "All right," he says into the huddle, more excited than he'd been earlier. "Let's get me my girl."  
  
  
  
  
Phase 1 in Operation Aki is How to Attract Your Love Interest.  
  
"Yesterday," Luhan starts, "what you were doing was...not great."  
  
"Okay," Sehun says. "What should I do today?"  
  
"Just let her be," Luhan tells him. "We'll make an appointment with the teahouse this time and go to one of her classes tomorrow."  
  
"Okay, let's do that."  
  
"Also, Your Highness," and Luhan seems a little edgy saying this, "you need a makeover."  
  
"Me?" Sehun is aghast. "A  _makeover_?"  
  
"Your hair, specifically, Your Highness."  
  
"What's wrong with my hair, hyung?!"  
  
"There's nothing wrong with your hair," Minseok tells him. "It's just that it makes you look like a bad boy--"  
  
"Which is cool," Sehun cuts in.  
  
"Which  _would_ be cool," Minseok corrects him, "if the girl you liked was into bad boys. Aki is clearly not."  
  
That gives Sehun pause. "You can tell that about her?"  
  
"Yes, Your Highness."  
  
"That," Luhan points out, "and your roots are showing."  
  
In the afternoon, Sehun gets his hair dyed black at a salon downtown, known for its A-list clientele and discreet staff.  
  
"What else?" he asks afterwards, examining his short, sharp cut in the mirror and finding it to his liking.  
  
Luhan smiles at the prince's newfound openness. "Tomorrow, Your Highness, just be yourself. She hasn't seen you in--what?" He consults Minseok.  
  
"Six years," Minseok supplies.  
  
"Six years," Luhan continues. "That's a long time to be apart. And people change. You can't expect it to be just the way it was when you were fifteen, especially since neither of you have kept in touch."  
  
Sehun nods, listening carefully.  
  
"So don't force it, Your Highness. Just act the way you do when you're around me and Kim--natural, you know, minus all the vulgarity--and you'll win her over." Luhan's eyes soften. "You won me over in half an hour, and you weren't even trying."  
  
Sehun's face scrunches into something adorable. "Mushy," he tells Luhan.  
  
"It's true," Luhan teases.  
  
"Should I take my earrings out?" Sehun asks, twirling the one in his right lobe.  
  
"Hmm." Luhan turns to his partner. "What do you think?"  
  
"Keep them in," Minseok says. "I know you love them. And you can't change everything about yourself to fit the other person. There should be a balance."  
  
"Good guys wear studs, too, don't they, hyung?"  
  
Minseok smiles at the artlessness of the question. "Sure they do."  
  
A little later, when Sehun has gone back to his room to Google proper tea ceremony etiquette, Luhan comes up to Minseok with a curious expression.  
  
"I thought you were going to tell him to lose the bling," the Chinese bodyguard says, hands curved around a mug. "That's what I would have said, until you gave him the moral of the story."  
  
There's a grin on Minseok's face, and he finds himself thinking that this--whatever it is--is getting much easier. "I like his earrings. Nothing wrong with them."  
  
"Do you..." Luhan licks his lips into a rephrase. "Are you an earrings kind of guy?"  
  
"My ears aren't pierced," Minseok answers. "But I like how they look on other people. Like, I dunno," he laughs shakily. "Like Gong Yoo."  
  
"Gong Yoo." Luhan looks curiouser and curiouser. "Is he your ideal type?"  
  
Minseok laughs again. "Maybe. Yeah, I guess you could say that. I've seen  _Coffee Prince_  five times."  
  
"I love that drama," Luhan says.  
  
When they leave the ryokan in the evening for dinner, the Chinese bodyguard is wearing one small black stud in each ear. Minseok, on the other hand, has his chin buried deep in the plaid muffler. If either of them notice, neither of them say so.  
  
  
  
  
The prince and Aki's second meeting goes much better than the first, although Sehun has to wait to make his move until after the tea ceremony.  
  
Aki is professional and perfectly distant during the ritual. She's gifted, too, the minute movements she makes to lift, pour, whisk, serve, and sip blending together in an exquisite dance. The hour passes too quickly for Minseok, who relishes the ambient sounds--the hiss of boiling water when Aki coaxes the lid off an iron pot, the click of a bamboo ladle when she sets it down. She speaks of the history of Japanese tea ceremonies, her voice like water, and the prince watches the shape of her mouth and stays absolutely still.  
  
Minseok mouths a  _fighting_ when her back is turned, while Luhan raises a supportive fist to match.  
  
Towards the end, when Sehun has sipped the last drop of strong, delicious green tea from a painted bowl, he smiles at her openly. "That was amazing, Aki," he says, and her eyes blink a little faster. "Now I understand how you could never get bored."  
  
She dips her head, manners unbroken. "Thank you for the compliment. Do you have any questions?" She also looks at Minseok and Luhan when she asks, being a gracious host.  
  
"I do," the prince says, and her gaze is back on him. "Why do we turn the bowls before we drink from them?"  
  
"Ah," she starts, a little surprised. "I'm sorry for not explaining this earlier. Each of our tea bowls has a discerning mark or design on one side, do you see?" She points out the spidery paint strokes of a crane on hers; the small, colorful bamboo forest on Sehun's. Minseok's and Luhan's each bear a constellation of ink dots.  
  
"What does it mean?" the prince asks.  
  
"That is the best part of the bowl," Aki tells him. "And we turn the bowl before we drink from it to ensure that the best part is facing the other person."  
  
"I see." Sehun's tone is ruminative. "It's like showing your best side to others."  
  
"Yes," Aki agrees. "And giving your best, too. Don't you think that's a beautiful practice?"  
  
"Beautiful," Sehun murmurs, his eyes fixed on her face.  
  
Minseok knows she discerns his meaning, because Aki drops her eyes to her knees. He nudges Luhan on the shoulder and they bow to her in unison, profuse in their compliments, before heading to the foyer.  
  
Of course, they don't stop listening as they pull on their shoes.  
  
"I'm sorry for the other day," Sehun is saying back in the room. "I'm sorry about the tea whisks and for being rude. I didn't mean it."  
  
Minseok can't hear anything in reply.  
  
"I wish we could see if she was smiling," Luhan whispers.  
  
Minseok puts a finger to his own lips, and Luhan is nodding obligingly.  
  
Sehun is talking again. "I like your kimono. I've never seen you wear one before. I mean, not back in Seoul--I just saw you wearing one two days ago. But yeah, I like this, too." The prince clears his throat. "It's a nice...purply...color."  
  
"Orchid," they hear Aki say, quiet as a drop in a pool. "That's what it's called."  
  
"Orchid," the prince repeats. "It's pretty. On you. Um."  
  
"Thank you, Sehun," the girl replies, and that gets both bodyguards beaming. "I like your hair this way. It suits you much better."  
  
Luhan flips his palm for a low-five, and Minseok meets it, very softly, with his own. He doesn't want to break the spell.  
  
Luhan's fingers curl over the back of his hand, and he squeezes once. The look he gives Minseok is a little giddy. It lingers, then shifts into something gentler.  
  
"Did you like that thing with the bowls?" Luhan asks in an undertone. "The part about showing your best to others?" His face contains a secret. "The nicest part about  _that_ ," Luhan says, "is when they start to see it."  
  
There is giggling in the tea room, and Luhan's fingers are gone in a flash, stuffed into the front pocket of his coat with the rest of his hand. Minseok shuts his eyes and reopens them, and the Chinese bodyguard is cocking his head in the direction of the door. "Come on, Kim," he says, in no particular tone of voice. "Let's give him a few more minutes."  
  
Minseok's palm is still warm from the contact. He nods, and his face feels a little warm, too, right under the skin.  
  
  
  
  
Phase 2 in Operation Aki is How to Romance Your Love Interest.  
  
"Great job, Your Highness," Luhan says after two weeks in Kyoto and ten appointments at the teahouse.  
  
"Really great job," Minseok affirms. "She likes you."  
  
"I hope so." Sehun shrugs noncommittally, but the glow in his face betrays his delight.  
  
Luhan rubs his hands together. "Now we have to get you two out on a real date."  
  
That makes Sehun pout. "We've been going on real dates..."  
  
"No, Your Highness," Luhan says expertly. "You've been paying the teahouse to watch her perform a Japanese tradition. By appointment."  
  
"The tea ceremony is a fine art, hyung."  
  
"Yes, it is, Your Highness. But it doesn't count as a date."  
  
"All right." The prince sounds resigned, and Minseok stifles a grin. His charge has never been good with change. "I just don't know how to work up to it. I might mess it up."  
  
"You won't, Your Highness," Minseok pacifies him, as Luhan shakes his head in reassurance.  
  
"What do I say?"  
  
Luhan answers that one. "Well, we've been here two weeks, and you haven't done any proper exploring--which is unlike you." There's amusement in his eyes. "We've seen Nijo Castle through the window when we take the bus, and we walk by Yasaka Shrine and Chionin Temple every time we go to the teahouse. That's pretty much it."  
  
"So I should ask her to be my tour guide?"  
  
"You should ask her," Luhan says, "to show you her city." He slides his hands into his pockets. "And when she does, you should make her feel like she's seeing everything for the first time."  
  
Sehun looks thoughtful when he turns to Minseok. "What do you think, hyung?"  
  
"It's a good idea, Your Highness." the bodyguard replies. Then he winks; a rare act of familiarity. "We'll make ourselves scarce."  
  
  
  
  
Minseok is sitting in the ryokan's spotless living area when Luhan finds him. One of the staff has presented Minseok with a tray of coffee and Japanese sweets before, once again, disappearing into thin air. It is their specialty, he has decided.  
  
"Hey," Luhan says, sitting next to him and pouring himself a mug. "How do you think we'll do today?"  
  
It's been a week and five tea ceremonies since their last pow-wow with Sehun. Yesterday, he'd finally plucked up the courage to ask Aki on a proper date. She'd smiled, peered into her tea bowl, and said, "Okay, Sehun-ah."  
  
"The prince will be fine," Minseok replies, fondness creeping into his tone. "And I'm kind of excited to see more of Kyoto."  
  
"Me, too," Luhan says. "I came here, you know, when I was a kid. My parents took a little trip one weekend to get away from the city."  
  
"Oh, really?" Minseok didn't know that. "You must be familiar with the sights then."  
  
"Nah, I don't remember much. I've seen pictures of me with the castle and the pavilions, but I guess I was too young." Luhan strokes a finger behind his ear. "I'll remember it now, though."  
  
"Yeah," Minseok says lightly, looking out into the garden. There's just a light dusting of snow left; white on the low bushes, damp on the stone sculptures. He thinks of how much it will change in the spring, when the cherry blossoms weigh heavy in the trees. "It's harder to forget things when you get older."  
  
"Things," Luhan repeats. "Places." Softer now. "People."  
  
Minseok pulls his gaze back into the room--and Luhan is blushing.  
  
"Kim," he ventures. "Can I ask you a personal question?"  
  
"Sure," Minseok replies, feeling a new heat in his chest.  
  
"The prince said he's been trying to get you to date. Why don't you?"  
  
If Minseok had been looking--he isn't--he would have seen the pink in Luhan's cheeks darken to burgundy. Instead, Minseok is chuckling self-consciously and avoiding all eye contact that isn't with his coffee mug.  
  
"No reason. I just never felt the need to, I guess. No time either. And Prince Sehun is not the ideal matchmaker." He says this all very quickly, like he's in a hurry to get it out and explained away.  
  
"You haven't ruled it out yet, though."  
  
"Um. No." Minseok is a little...disoriented. "Why do you ask?" He laughs loudly just then, an awkward attempt at nonchalance. "Do you know anyone interesting?"  
  
"I don't know about interesting," Luhan murmurs, and Minseok thinks he's going to say something else. But Sehun is dashing down the stairs and babbling about being late and all three of them are tumbling out the door, and those last few words, whatever they might have been, pool at the bottom of Luhan's mug.  
  
  
  
  
The prince's date takes place at Ryoan-ji. The temple's zen garden is the finest in the world, according to Aki. They take off their shoes as instructed by the temple staff, and they sit on the steps that face the rock formations.  
  
"It looks a little plain now," Aki tells the prince. "But when it's spring, the cherry blossoms hang over that wall and all around this area, and it feels like you're in an oasis."  
  
"Let's come back and you can show me," Sehun says. He has the mask on, but his eyes are warm on her face. The girl rewards him with the shyest of smiles, which Minseok observes from two rows back.  
  
Luhan presses their arms together in triumph. They're squeezed between a small group of Japanese schoolgirls and a large group of Vietnamese tourists. Minseok can feel the outline of Luhan's bicep through the sleeve of his jacket.  
  
"Dating's not so bad, is it?" Luhan whispers.  
  
Minseok doesn't say anything, but he keeps his arm where it is for the rest of the time.  
  
  
  
  
The kids, as Minseok and Luhan call them, go on more dates.  
  
They visit Nijo Castle and wander through its hallowed halls, their hands swinging between them, almost touching.  
  
The bodyguards keep a distance of five paces. Luhan translates for Minseok when the Japanese audio guide plays in each room. Minseok tries not to react when Luhan's lips brush the shell of his ear by accident.  
  
They walk deep into Gion to see the old houses, and a school of geishas flutter past in pale kimonos. "In Kyoto, we use the term  _geiko_ ," Aki tells the prince. "It means 'a woman of art.'"  
  
"That's like you," Sehun replies. "Except you'll never need all that makeup."  
  
Aki stares at him from under her eyelashes.  
  
"Look at that," Luhan mutters, impressed. "He's so smooth."  
  
Minseok only hums in response, because Luhan has placed his hand on the small of his back.  
  
They take the train to Fushimi Inari Taisha, the ancient shrine at the base of a mountain. Sehun asks Luhan to take a photo of him and Aki in the tunnel path leading to the inner sanctuary. It's lined with thousands of  _torii_ painted orange and black, and Minseok thinks he's never seen anything so incredible.  
  
"I'll take one of you two," Sehun says, waggling a finger between his guardians.  
  
Minseok plans to decline. "No, thank you, Your Highness," is already at the tip of his tongue.  
  
But Luhan is smoothing down his coat in the spot with good light and saying, "Come here, Kim," in the pitch of a question, a request. His eyes are dappled in the light, and the way it hits his face gives him a peculiar glow, like it's late summer by the Han River and not early spring in a mountain hundreds of miles away. For some reason, Minseok remembers how the prince had looked at Aki in the zen garden, and something inside him caves all the way through.  
  
They take the picture, with Sehun's phone and then with Luhan's, and the kids start walking ahead of them again.  
  
"Nice day, huh, Kim? So bright." Luhan points out where patches of sun are filtering through the gaps between the  _torii_.  
  
Up ahead, Aki slips her hand into Sehun's.  
  
Minseok exhales. He hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath.  
  
"Hey," he says, and Luhan gives him his full attention, like always. "You can call me Minseok."  
  
  
  
  
Phase 3 in Operation Aki is How to Confess to Your Love Interest--with Success.  
  
It's the first week of April, and clouds of sakura have set Kyoto abloom.  
  
"Hyung," Sehun mumbles through a mouthful of pillow. "This is going to be the worst day of my life."  
  
Luhan hovers over him, tutting. "That's a little melodramatic, Your Highness."  
  
"Besides," Minseok quips from the opposite side of the bed, "you've already confessed to her once. I was there."  
  
The three of them are in Sehun's room at the ryokan, where the prince is lying face down on his mattress. "I'm having a meltdown," is what he'd said half an hour earlier, when Minseok had rapped on his door with Luhan in tow.  
  
The Chinese bodyguard pats the prince on the back. "Come on, Your Highness. Do you want to talk it through with us one more time?"  
  
Sehun rolls himself over and into an upright position. There are lines on his forehead from the wrinkles in the pillowcase. "So, we'll go to Kiyomizu-dera Temple."  
  
"Right," Luhan says.  
  
"And on the way up, I'll hold her hand."  
  
"Right," Minseok says. "Easy."  
  
"Right. And then when we get up there, we'll look at all the cherry blossoms, take a few pictures, talk about our usual stuff. It'll be romantic."  
  
"Right," Luhan says. "Keep going."  
  
"And then, at the right moment, I'll say...I'll say..." Sehun trails off. He grimaces, turns a violent shade of red, and covers his face with both hands. "What do I  _say_? I don't know what to say! I don't know what to do! I'm gonna choke, and it's all gonna be over."  
  
Luhan plants his hands on the prince's shoulders. "The first thing to remember in any operation, Your Highness, is the importance of keeping calm."  
  
Minseok locks a laugh behind his teeth and just nods, nods, nods when Sehun shoots him a plaintive look.  
  
After a few more technical rehearsals, each one peppered with an outburst from the prince, Minseok retreats to his own room to get ready.  
  
There's a rap on his door a few minutes later. Luhan's face greets him when he slides it open.  
  
"Minseok."  
  
It's been almost a month since he made the concession, but he hasn't quite gotten used to hearing his name yet.  
  
"What's up?" Minseok bounces back, remembering the importance of keeping calm. It's hit or miss when he's around Luhan, who dispenses his touch like he does his smiles.  
  
There's another one, lighting up on the dot. "The prince wants to pick up some flowers. I could just take him myself, but I wanted to run it by you first?" Luhan's got these crinkles on the corners of his eyes. "We always go as a team."  
  
"Go ahead," Minseok says. He doesn't even think about it. "I know he's safe with you."  
  
It's nothing, really--a tiny allowance in the big scheme of things. But the significance of the gesture comes to Minseok belatedly, and he feels a little exposed standing there in its aftermath. Because the moment has not escaped Luhan. Not with that look on his face.  
  
"Thanks," Luhan says quietly, tender-eyed and not quite smiling. "Thanks."  
  
He makes like he's going to go, but his feet shuffle. "Do you have a little time tomorrow?"  
  
Aki has a full day of academics at Doshisha University, so the prince will be spending his day at the ryokan. So will his bodyguards. "Yeah, why?" Minseok's heart rate speeds up without warning.  
  
"There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about," Luhan tells him. "But it can wait until then."  
  
"All right," Minseok says, because it's the only thing to say. Luhan's not-quite-smile is soft as a petal.  
  
Then he's walking away, and Minseok is suddenly thinking about Li Na and being fourteen years old and getting the first kiss of his life from someone he'd really liked.  
  
It scares the shit out of him.  
  
  
  
  
Objectively speaking, the plan is a complete and total bust.  
  
Kiyomizu-dera's main hall, the one in all the postcards, the one with the breathtaking view of the city beyond and the pale pink lushness of the cherry blossoms beneath-- _that's_  closed for renovation.  
  
"It's okay," Aki says, when the kindly man at the ticket booth apologizes for the inconvenience. "We should have checked ahead of time."  
  
She suggests they explore the rest of the temple complex, which is just as breathtaking and affords an even closer look at the sakura.  
  
"But I wanted to show you the ones up there." Sehun swings out an arm in the direction of the main hall.  
  
"I've already been up there, Sehun-ah." Aki's voice is sweet and sunny.  
  
"Not with me."  
  
"You can take me another time," she says to appease him, slipping her little hand into the crook of his elbow.  
  
"But..." Sehun glances back at his bodyguards as she leads him down a flight of stone steps. Luhan rotates his pointers to tell the prince,  _Just go with it._  
  
Aki is right. There's an abundance of cherry blossoms surrounding the temple--lanes upon lanes of them. From afar, they seem light and insubstantial, like tufts of cotton candy. Up close, they are decadent and textured, something Minseok wants to run his hands over. The prince takes a lot of pictures.  
  
When he finds the perfect spot to shoot a selfie with Aki, his phone runs out of juice.  
  
It's almost like a cartoon, the speed at which his face drops.  
  
"Here, Your Highness." Minseok quickly produces his own unit. "Use mine."  
  
"But I wanted one in  _my_ phone," Sehun mumbles, looking defeated.  
  
"Oppa can just send it to you after," Aki reasons. She shoots Minseok a smile loaded with an inside joke. "Right?"  
  
"Of course, Aki-sshi."  
  
Sehun's mask is hanging off his ear, the way he'd left it before his phone died. It's totally endearing. "It's not the same though..."  
  
Aki pokes him on the cheek. "Do you want to use my phone, then?"  
  
Luhan presses fingers into Minseok's side. They're both holding back their giggles.  
  
The prince nods like a mollified child.  
  
"Bet you he wanted to set it as the background photo in his phone," Luhan says into Minseok's ear.  
  
His breath is hot, like the current of electricity it sends up Minseok's spine. Suddenly Minseok isn't giggling anymore.  
  
By far, the biggest wrench thrown into Sehun's plan comes by way of a fangirl.  
  
They are making their way back down from the temple, weaving through the crowds in the narrow Higashiyama District. Aki has stopped to try a cream puff--a taster offered by a vendor. She takes a bite and holds it out for Sehun. He drags down the front of his mask, tucks it under his chin, and lets Aki feed him the rest of the pastry. Then he licks his lips and stares at her, so, so smitten.  
  
"Is that--oh, my god," someone stammers in Korean. It's a girl's voice, raised somewhere by Minseok's shoulder. "That's Prince Sehun!"  
  
A murmur races through the crowd and swells like a song, and Minseok's training is kicking in by pure instinct. He grabs the prince, Luhan grabs Aki, and they  _push_ through the wall of screaming girls who've suddenly made the street seem two inches wide.  
  
There are smartphones and cameras in their faces, wails of  _oppa_ and  _prince_ and _who's that girl_ , more wails on top of those in languages Minseok doesn't understand. He doesn't know when it speedballs into a chase, but suddenly they're running--it's ridiculous--but they're running down the last stretch of street until the main road. Sehun and Aki have linked hands, and Minseok and Luhan are on either side of them, hoping to God nobody trips.  
  
In the end, Luhan flags down a taxi and all four of them are clambering in and telling the driver to step on it.  
  
"Are you all right?" Sehun's in the backseat with Minseok, Aki between them. The prince is holding her by the arm. "Are you hurt anywhere?"  
  
"I'm fine," Aki answers, looking him over with the same amount of concern. "Are  _you_ all right?"  
  
He nods, a little shaken. Minseok suspects the mob of fangirls is only partially to blame.  
  
"Minseok-oppa? Luhan-oppa?" Aki is touching them both on the shoulder.  
  
"We're good, Aki-sshi," Luhan assures her. Minseok aims for comfort when he replies, "Don't worry."  
  
"Thanks, guys." Sehun looks so tired. Anxious, too, when he speaks to Aki. "I'm sorry you had to go through that. It's all my fault."  
  
"No, it's not," she refutes him. "Why are you apologizing?"  
  
"I just..." Sehun jiggles his knee, clamps teeth over his lip. "I..."  
  
"What is it, Sehun-ah?"  
  
"I like you," the prince blurts out.  
  
Very slowly, leading by his eyeballs, Minseok angles his head to look out the window. He catches Luhan doing the same thing.  
  
"I like you a lot," Sehun whispers. "I like you so much. And I don't want to scare you off."  
  
The prince swallows. Minseok swallows. Minseok thinks he hears Luhan swallow.  
  
"You know," Aki says, in her lovely, quiet voice, "I don't scare off very easily."  
  
"Oh." Sehun contemplates that answer. And then. " _Oh_. Do you mean--"  
  
Aki pecks him on the cheek.  
  
Minseok hears the light smack of her lips, the gasp it draws out of the prince. The thud of the punch she lands on his chest (or is it his arm?) when Sehun demands, "Again."  
  
Minseok also hears the snort that leaves Luhan's nostrils when Aki whispers, "You're so embarrassing. The oppas can hear you."  
  
"You're beautiful," Sehun tells her in turn, like it's just the two of them in the car. "Will you be my girlfriend?"  
  
There's another light smack of lips--Sehun's, this time, on Aki's hand.  
  
"Yes," Aki whispers, and Minseok can imagine the pretty color of her blush.  
  
He lets his eyes wander to the back of Luhan's head. From this side, he can see a lift in his partner's cheek, like he's smiling. He's always smiling. When Luhan rubs a hand over his nape, Minseok's eyes go straight to the movement, and then to his neck. He wonders how the skin there would feel, warm or cool, under his mouth.  
  
He has to rid himself of the thought physically, with a shake of the head--and Aki, in all her sweetness, asks if he's hurt it somewhere.  
  
  
  
  
"Considering how everything went wrong," Sehun muses when they're back at the ryokan, "I think that went pretty well."  
  
"It all worked out, Your Highness," Minseok says. "We're happy for you."  
  
Luhan agrees. "It was even better than the plan."  
  
The prince is beaming, head in the clouds. "Aki's been telling me about this exchange program her university has with Yonsei. We talked about it a few times, you know, before today. She says she's going to take it, starting in the fall." His face radiates a singular emotion--bliss. "We'll be together in  _Seoul_ , hyung. Can you believe it?  
  
"That  _is_ great," Minseok tells him. "I didn't know what you were planning to do when we went back to Korea. Long distance, or..."  
  
Sehun pshaws. "I would have stayed here. Transferred out to Doshisha or Kyoto U for my last year. I'd never leave her." Then he grins, tracing a pattern into the edge of the dinner table.  
  
It's youth and a lifetime of privilege that makes him sound so sure. Minseok's smile is fond, only the corners of it betraying his envy. He wishes it were that easy for every other person who found themselves in--  
  
He stops himself right there.  
  
"The exchange program is only a year long," Sehun is saying. "But that gives me just enough time to lock her down." He leans in conspiratorially. "Aki likes me, you know. She told me so, when I walked her to her door. 'I like you, too, Sehun-ah.' That's what she said. Verbatim." The memory of it makes the prince melt into a giggling puddle of goo.  
  
Luhan laughs outright. "We're  _really_ happy for you, then, Your Highness." He makes eyes at Minseok over Sehun's head, like he's trying to communicate, _Can you believe this kid?_  
  
"Happy," Minseok echoes, attempting to break eye contact and failing miserably. He can't stop blinking. It might have something to do with the fact that his partner's irises are a hypnotizing shade of dark brown.  
  
He's almost certain that Luhan has read his mind, because he's doing that thing again where he's smiling but not quite. His mouth looks so damn soft.  
  
"It's funny, isn't it," Luhan says, like he's still talking to the prince. His gaze is pure honey in Minseok's direction. "How things fall into place."  
  
  
  
  
Minseok spends the most part of the next day trying to avoid getting cornered. This involves a lot of interrupted reading, scooping up coffee mugs at the sound of a footstep, and slinking in and out of rooms all over the ryokan. It's really not that big of a place.  
  
By the time he's situated himself on a bench in the garden, it's four in the afternoon, and Minseok feels particularly foolish. Especially when Luhan comes strolling over not ten minutes later.  
  
"Hey, Minseok." He sounds friendly, but guarded. "I've been looking all over for you."  
  
"Oh?" Minseok replies, the most casual man in a world of casual men.  
  
"Yeah." In comparison, there is only honesty in Luhan's voice. "I wanted to talk to you, remember?"  
  
Minseok remembers, all right.  
  
"Are you...avoiding me?" Luhan asks. There's space on the bench next to Minseok, but he doesn't take it. Instead, he crouches in front of him, so they're face to face.  
  
"Um."  
  
"It feels like you are." Luhan's watching him from under his eyelashes now. His Adam's apple bobs. It makes him look vulnerable and desirable at the same time, and Minseok's denial withers in his throat.  
  
_You are a grown man,_  he tells himself.  _Get it over with._  
  
"Maybe I am."  
  
"Why?" Luhan's eyes don't expand with surprise, like Minseok expects them to. They mellow with longing, like he can't bear them to. "Have I offended you?"  
  
"No," Minseok breathes out. "Nothing like that."  
  
"Then what?"  
  
"You make me nervous sometimes." Minseok is talking faster than he can mentally edit. "The way you look at me, and how it feels when you...touch."  _Oh, god._  "Sometimes it's like we're just partners, but then you'll start speaking to me in code, like you're trying to send me a message, and it's confusing, Luhan. It's really confusing. It almost feels like..."  
  
"Like...?"  
  
"Like I'm being..."  
  
"Go on."  
  
Minseok's bravado fails him at the last minute. "Actually, you know what...forget about it."  
  
So Luhan says it for him. "Like you're being pursued?"  
  
Minseok hears the cherry blossoms rustling above him, a bird trilling far in the distance, and the sound of his heart, hammering against his chest.  
  
"Because I've been trying for a while now," Luhan says. "I'm glad you finally noticed."  
  
He places his hand beside the one Minseok has balled into a fist, and he traces his thumb over Minseok's knuckles.  
  
"I've been doing all those things," Luhan says, "because I want you so bad."  
  
Minseok unclenches.  
  
"We're partners," he mumbles, resolve slipping away with the petals in the breeze. "We need to follow protocol."  
  
"What protocol?" Luhan speaks placidly. Both his hands are on the bench now; one on either side of Minseok's knees. "There's nothing against inter-agent relationships." His tongue slows over that last word. "We just can't bring outsiders into the palace. It's like a country club."  
  
Minseok wants to laugh it off, but Luhan is in the space between his legs, and it's not funny. It's nerve-wracking.  
  
"I know this, because I read the handbook from cover to cover. I bet you did, too." Luhan leans in slowly, and Minseok lets him. "I wanted to impress you, Minseok."  
  
He can smell Luhan's shampoo, mild and melony, irresistible. He shuts his eyes and fights the urge to inhale more deeply.  
  
"What do you think of me?" Luhan whispers, breath ghosting over Minseok's lips. "Am I the only one who..." The tip of his nose skates across the tip of Minseok's.  
  
"S-stop," Minseok tells him, with zero percent conviction. "Stop seducing me."  
  
"Stop resisting," Luhan replies, his words syrupy with heat. And then he's drawing away to look Minseok in the eye, and his expression has a touch more doubt in it than Minseok can stomach.  
  
Minseok doesn't say that he wants him so much it's become a problem, or that he thinks Luhan is fascinating and painfully attractive, or even that he likes him--really, actually likes him. But he does brush his fingers over the swell of Luhan's lip.  
  
It happens so quickly.  
  
Luhan is catching his wrist and pressing his lips against Minseok's fingertips. Luhan is hauling him forward, and his lips are pressing against Minseok's mouth. Then Luhan is leading him back into the ryokan, up the stairs, into his room, and Minseok is sliding the door shut.  
  
  
  
  
All they do, for hours, is kiss.  
  
Their clothes stay on. No furniture is broken. They keep their hands to themselves. Mostly.  
  
Minseok is okay with this, because it's been two years since he's slept with anyone, and he is unprepared. The last time had been quick and unsatisfying in a bathroom stall, with a condom tucked in Minseok's wallet and too much whiskey in his bloodstream. His wallet has never been restocked since, and he's consistently turned down the prospects brought to him by the prince.  
  
Minseok is okay with this, because Luhan is pliant lips and gentle moans and teeth that graze and tongue like liquid. His efforts are soft and worshipping in Minseok's mouth. Against Minseok's neck. On the underside of his jaw, the base of his throat. Over the sensitive curves and tips of his ears. His eyelids, his temples.  
  
Minseok is perfectly sober, but he thinks this might be what true intoxication feels like.


	3. Chapter 3

By the time they sit up from Luhan's mattress, it's seven-thirty in the evening.  
  
Minseok scrounges around for his phone and finds it in the pocket of his jacket. Luhan hooks his chin over the bodyguard's shoulder and snakes an arm around his waist. He kisses casually down Minseok's nape.  
  
"Enough," Minseok laughs, pitching forward because it tickles.  
  
Luhan's smile is damp against his skin. "I'll never get enough."  
  
It's cheesy and embarrassing, and Minseok struggles to think of a retort that doesn't make him seem so whipped.  
  
The light on the corner of his phone is blinking--a welcome distraction. Minseok presses the button that powers up his home screen. There are six missed calls from the prince.  
  
"Shit," he mutters, as Luhan cranes over his shoulder to see. "He must be starving by now."  
  
Luhan produces his own phone and logs three missed calls. "You might be right," he chuckles, peeling off. He keeps his hand on the small of Minseok's back. "Let's go feed him."  
  
The prince's room is on the opposite end of the hall to Luhan's, right next to Minseok's. They walk the short distance together, arms bumping accidentally-on-purpose.  
  
The television isn't humming behind the paper wall, and the absence of a glow denotes the lights are off, too.  
  
"Your Highness?" Minseok raps softly on the doorframe. There's no answer. He tries again.  
  
"Maybe he's sleeping?" Luhan suggests.  
  
There this tiny, tiny niggle at the back of Minseok's head. "Let me just check." Carefully, he slides the door open, trying to make as little noise as possible. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room, with just a small shaft of light streaming in from the hallway behind him.  
  
"Your Highness?" Still no answer.  
  
The niggle insists, like a splinter he can feel but not see. He steps into the room. "Prince Sehun," he says in a louder voice, right before palming the wall and flipping the light switch. The prince's bed is made, and his in-suite bathroom is empty.  
  
"He's not in here," Minseok says, pushing past Luhan. His feet are quick when he climbs down the stairs that lead to the first floor. It's an open space; one sweep of the eye is enough to tell Minseok the prince isn't here, either. "Your Highness?" he calls out anyway, the niggle intensifying into a scrape.  
  
His phone is still in his hand. He presses the icon next to one of Sehun's logged calls to return it. The line rings.  
  
One of the ryokan's staff, a woman, is setting down a teapot in the dining area. "Have you seen Prince Sehun?" Minseok asks her in English.  
  
It's still ringing.  
  
"Yes, Mr. Kim, he went out."  
  
"Out?" Minseok sputters, just as the line picks up. He doesn't even wait for the hello.  
  
"Your Highness, where  _are_ you?"  
  
"Oppa?" It's Aki's voice on the other end. "I've been trying to call you for an hour!"  
  
Panic spreads like wildfire through Minseok's chest. "Aki-sshi," he tries to say calmly. "Where is the prince?"  
  
"We're at the hospital..."  
  
Minseok's stomach drops. He staggers back a step, straight into Luhan's chest.  
  
"Oppa, I didn't know he was coming to see me--"  
  
Minseok cuts her off. "What happened?"  
  
Luhan puts a hand on his shoulder. "Minseok?"  
  
The touch, mingled with his panic, makes his skin crawl, and he jerks away from it.  
  
"They started chasing us, oppa--"  
  
"Who?" Minseok demands as Luhan hand drops to his side. He looks as though he's just been slapped.  
  
"Those crazy girls..."  
  
That's concern he sees on Luhan's face--concern stretched taut at the corners from the pressure of the hurt underneath it. Minseok doesn't care right now. He sidesteps his partner and his feet are gaining momentum again, racing him back up the stairs to grab his shoes and his wallet.  
  
"We were running so fast," Aki narrates in his ear, "and Sehun fell. He fell really hard. The doctor said his leg is broken and there's something wrong with his side, too, and I--" Her breath hitches in distress. "My parents are on their way. Just please come?" She gives him the name and address of the hospital.  
  
"We're on our way, Aki-sshi."  
  
Minseok hangs up, and the guilt comes by way of flash flood.  
  
Luhan is at the bottom of the staircase, pulling on his sneakers in haste. Minseok doesn't wait for him. Adrenaline pushes him out the door and into the street and has him standing in the middle of the road to get a taxi screeching to a halt. Then Luhan is next to him again and he's panting and placing his hand on Minseok's elbow, and Minseok jerks away even harder than he did the first time.  
  
"Minseok--"  
  
" _Don't,_ " he spits at Luhan, the last few hours feeling like a distant memory. "Just get in."  
  
  
  
  
Not once, in the six years Sehun has been entrusted to his charge, has Minseok let him out of his sight while on duty.  
  
Not once, in the six years Minseok has been Sehun's bodyguard, has the prince gotten so much as a scratch on him.  
  
A bodyguard is a person whose job it is to protect someone. Minseok has never forgotten the definition. Minseok has never forgotten his responsibilities.  
  
Not once.  
  
Until today.  
  
  
  
  
"Tell me exactly what happened, Kim." The Queen's voice is crisp over the long-distance call. "Tell me from the beginning."  
  
What happened is that Sehun had snuck out of the ryokan and into Aki's university, high from his confession and wanting to be alone with her.  
  
What happened is that, overnight, a battery of photos of the prince's black dye job and telltale mask and  _that girl_  from the Higashiyama District took the Japanese blogosphere by storm.  
  
What happened is that a good number of morbidly-obsessed fans were on campus to make the connection.  
  
"They mobbed him, Your Majesty." Minseok's voice is penitent. "The prince made a run for it with Aki-sshi. He was watching her feet, not his, as they sprinted down a flight of stairs, and that's how he took the tumble."  
  
Sehun has fractured his left leg in three places, bruised two ribs, and dislocated a shoulder. The doctors say it will hurt for several weeks, but the prince will survive.  
  
When Minseok had rushed into the hospital room, Luhan at his heels, the first thing out of the Sehun's mouth had been, "HyungI'msorry _fuckthathurts_ don'tbemad!"  
  
The Queen sighs. "He's never managed to get away from you before. Where were you and Luhan in all this?"  
  
Slow-kissing in Luhan's bed, oblivious to the world around them. That's where they had been, but Minseok doesn't tell her this.  
  
"We weren't watching him closely enough, Your Majesty," is the explanation he offers instead. "We were lax in our duties."  
  
"That is so unlike you, Kim."  
  
"Yes, Your Majesty." Her words only cut because they're true. "I deeply apologize and take full responsibility."  
  
There's silence on the other end. Minseok can hear the Queen's breathing through the receiver, even and contemplative. He waits.  
  
"Kim?"  
  
"Yes, Your Majesty."  
  
"Does he look happy?"  
  
He wasn't expecting that. "Pardon?"  
  
"Does my son look happy," the Queen expounds, "when he's with that little girl?"  
  
"Yes, Your Majesty," Minseok answers truthfully. "Very much so."  
  
"Good," she murmurs. Then her voice is as clear as before. "I'll speak to him now, please. Bring him home when he's healed. No rush."  
  
  
  
  
The end takes place in the sterile hallway, when the painkillers have lulled the prince to sleep.  
  
"What happened earlier, at the ryokan," Minseok mutters. "I want us to forget it did."  
  
Luhan's expression crumples like paper. "Minseok, why are you--"  
  
He's shaking his head, pressing his lips together. "Don't," Minseok warns. He allows the harshness to coat his tone, ignores the clench of his stomach and the misery in his partner's eyes. "Neither of us can afford a distraction like this."  
  
Something flickers in Luhan's face. "This isn't a distraction for me. This is real." He reaches for Minseok's hand, and cruelly, Minseok steps back.  
  
"What's real is my job," Minseok growls under his breath. "What's real is the prince sustaining bodily injuries because I was busy  _not doing_  my job. I won't let it happen again."  
  
"I care about him as much as you do," Luhan whispers, fingers clenching. "I feel guilty, too, all right? His safety is top priority to me. But there are other things," and his voice quavers, "--that are just as important."  
  
The word leaves Minseok on an exhale: "Enough." He reels at how quickly it comes back to him then--the memory of Luhan's open mouth against the skin of his neck.  
  
Part of Minseok frantically whispers,  _Don't do it. You can have this._  It's a small part, about the size of the lump in his throat. The bigger, more powerful part of him hisses,  _You can't. Do it now._  
  
"Why can't you just let your guard down for once?" Luhan sounds so broken.  
  
"I already did." One decision, two steps, and Minseok is brushing by him to quietly open the door. "Look where that got the prince."  
  
  
  
  
After a week, Sehun is discharged from the hospital but ordered to bed rest at the ryokan. Aki's father, the ambassador, sends a car and a driver.  
  
"My dad says he's never met a prince who takes public transportation," Aki tells Sehun as she helps him out of bed. She's come to see him every day. Her parents have been twice, counting the night Sehun was admitted.  
  
"He likes me," Sehun boasts. "And I think your mom does, too." He grips Minseok's arm as he lowers himself into his wheelchair. "Do I really have to use this, hyung?"  
  
"Yes, Your Highness," Minseok replies briskly.  
  
Aki busies herself with packing up Sehun's toiletries in the bathroom, humming as she organizes the bottles in a pouch.  
  
Sehun smiles contentedly at her back before glancing up at Minseok. Like his gaze, the prince's voice is tentative. "Are you still angry?"  
  
"No, Your Highness." Minseok sees no point in dwelling over it. He  _had_ been angry, with himself mostly, but after days of beating himself up about it, he's just exhausted. He hopes that doesn't show on his face. Among other things.  
  
Sehun's brow furrows. He turns his head to look over his shoulder. "And you, Luhan-hyung?"  
  
Minseok keeps his eyes on the ground, but he still hears the murmured, "No, Your Highness. I'm not either."  
  
"I don't believe you," Sehun pouts, looking back and forth between his bodyguards. "It's been quiet as death in here all week. The two of you, not saying a word." Sehun sighs. "I was stupid, okay? I just wanted it to be...just me and Aki and...it was stupid. Really stupid. And I'm really, really, really,  _really_ sorry. I never meant to get you guys in trouble."  
  
"It's all right, Your Highness," Minseok replies. "We still have our jobs."  
  
"Hyung..."  
  
"Just don't do it again, please?"  
  
"Never. I promise."  
  
Minseok tries on a grin and lets the prince have it. "We're just glad you're okay. Everything is fine." From the corner of his eye, he sees Luhan lick his lips.  
  
"Don't worry, Your Highness," the Chinese bodyguard quips. His voice is unnaturally bright, like the plastic props in those Japanese game shows on TV. "Everything's back to normal now."  
  
  
  
  
They remain in Japan for another eight weeks. The prince heals slowly, but satisfactorily, under Minseok's strict supervision and Luhan's slightly more tolerant watch.  
  
Aki visits every day, and they take shifts at the door when she's tending to Sehun. Quick runs to 7-Eleven for potato chips and oral analgesics are not a team effort. There is no fraternizing in Luhan's or Minseok's rooms at the end of the day.  
  
July in Kyoto is not as warm and sticky as it is in Seoul. Minseok thought he would be sad to leave the ryokan behind, but it's more like he's relieved. There are things that happened here--and all over this city--he would like to lock into his suitcase and not unpack.  
  
Aki doesn't come to the airport on the day they fly back, but she kisses Sehun on the mouth when he drops by her parents' house to say goodbye.  
  
"I love you," the prince tells her, wobbling on his crutches from the sheer giddiness of it.  
  
"Me, too," she tells him, as Minseok and Luhan avert their eyes. "See you in September."  
  
They take a chartered plane back to Korea, courtesy of the King. Sehun sleeps like a baby during the short flight, and his bodyguards sit across from one another, watchful and silent.  
  
Their relationship has dialled back to the way it was before they came to Japan. Strictly business, with perfectly-constructed boundaries and not too much chatter.  
  
Just what Minseok wanted.  
  
Right?  
  
  
  
  
The King gets to embrace his son for all of three seconds before the Queen crowds him out to fuss.  
  
"I'm all right," Sehun laughs as she forces him into a chair and gingerly strokes over his cast. "This comes off in a few weeks."  
  
"Good," she says imperiously, "because you're grounded until then."  
  
The prince laughs even louder, with double the amount of warmth, and tells his mother he's not a kid anymore.  
  
"That's not what you said a few months ago." The Queen is coy, her tone relenting.  
  
"I know." Sehun pecks her on the cheek. "But now I have a reason to grow up."  
  
In the background, the King comes to stand next to Minseok and Luhan, who both bow low in greeting.  
  
"How was Japan?" the King asks pleasantly, clapping them both on the shoulder. "Did you enjoy yourselves?"  
  
Minseok bows again, and Luhan follows suit.  
  
"I apologize for letting the prince get hurt, Your Majesty." Minseok remains at the ninety-degree angle as he speaks.  
  
"We were careless, Your Majesty," Luhan murmurs next to him.  
  
The King makes a sound of contemplation at the back of his throat. "Boys will be boys. It wasn't all your fault."  
  
They straighten their backs.  
  
"Thank you, Your Majesty," Luhan says before Minseok can. He's using the official, trained timbre they were taught at the academy. "It won't happen again."  
  
Luhan's jaw is set, and his stance is impeccable, and Minseok can tell he's talking about more than letting the prince out of their sight.  
  
  
  
  
Settling back into the routine of the palace is easy, because Minseok has always been good with procedure.  
  
Pressing an immaculate crease into his suit trousers and easing a tie into the perfect knot. Reporting for duty at six in the morning and sharing drip coffee with Chanyeol in the cafeteria before the prince gets up for school. Sweeping a room from corner to corner, floorboards to rafters, before permitting the prince to occupy it. Standing for hours by a door or a desk, feet apart, hands crossed in front of him--protective, but at ease. Not thinking about anything else but the job--this is easy. This is familiar.  
  
He sees Luhan every day, and this is also familiar. But as the silence between them swells like a tumor, the same routine Minseok used to find comfort in only brings him unease.  
  
It doesn't help knowing that he's to blame.  
  
  
  
  
"Is everything okay, hyung?" Sehun asks one day when he's got Minseok alone. Luhan has just excused himself for a bathroom break.  
  
Minseok replies automatically. "Of course, Your Highness."  
  
Sehun hesitates, because his bodyguard sounds so sure. "You and Luhan-hyung, though...you seem like you fought."  
  
The ambiguous hum that vibrates in Minseok's throat is neither a yes nor a no.  
  
"I noticed in Japan, when you guys stopped talking. At first I thought you were punishing me, you know, giving me the cold shoulder..."  
  
Minseok cracks a minute smile.  
  
"But then I realized you weren't talking to _each other._ "  
  
"Nothing to be concerned about, Your Highness." Minseok schools his expression into indifference. "Everything is fine."  
  
"That's always your tagline," Sehun says. "But I don't think it's true today."  
  
Minseok finds it more prudent to stay silent.  
  
"I don't know what happened," the prince continues, "and it's probably none of my business." He puts a hand on Minseok's shoulder, and Minseok is surprised to find in the weight of it that his charge is no longer a child. "But I hope it can still be fixed, hyung."  
  
  
  
  
A lot can change in the span of two months. Minseok knows this, because he's watching it happen before his very eyes.  
  
Luhan is no longer an amused grin in a dark corner of one of Prince Jongin's parties, or the other end of a knowing look when Prince Sehun gushes over a call from Aki. He is neither a confidant at the end of the day over a cup of unsweetened tea, nor a welcoming face at the lunch table in the cafeteria, his palm saving Minseok a seat.  
  
The new Luhan is a consummate professional who gets to work thirty minutes before Minseok does and takes his coffee at home, alone. He is a skilled agent who tutors Sehun for his foreign language courses and only speaks to Minseok when spoken to first. He is an accountable partner who helps Minseok talk the prince out of his weekly weird ideas and who has refused, for months, to make eye contact.  
  
The meter that Luhan carefully measures out between them, everywhere they go, is not enough space for Minseok's unspoken regrets.  
  
  
  
  
Aki touches down in Seoul just a few days after the leaves change color. There is a media maelstrom surrounding her arrival--and a clog of Sehun's sasaengs at the airport, polluting it with noise. "Kyoto's Kate Middleton," the papers are calling her.  
  
Naturally, the Queen has taken it upon herself to phone her "daughter-in-law's" parents ahead of time. They're old friends, "territorial disputes be damned." Together, they've worked out the proper precautions.  
  
The name of Aki's bodyguard is Wu Yifan. He is Chinese in descent--born in Guangzhou, raised in Vancouver, trained in Tokyo. He is also over six feet tall, with the build of an athlete and the face of a movie star.  
  
In the confines of the palace, Sehun takes one look at him and frowns. "I don't like this guy," he tells Aki, in full hearing of her bodyguard.  
  
"Relax," she whispers, shooting the prince a loaded glance. "He's not interested in women."  
  
This appeases Sehun greatly. "Perfect!" he says, finally acknowledging Yifan's deep bow. "Meet my bodyguards, Minseok-hyung and Luhan-hyung. Luhan-hyung is Chinese, too." The suits make their introductions as Sehun draws his girlfriend away.  
  
Yifan tells Minseok it's a pleasure to meet him in perfectly-accented Korean. Presumably, he says the same to Luhan, except in Mandarin. Minseok doesn't miss the way Luhan lights up at the sound of his native tongue, or how Yifan's gaze lingers on his partner's face just a moment too long.  
  
  
  
  
Aki and the prince spend almost all their time together. This means Yifan spends almost all his time with Minseok and Luhan.  
  
It's always the same thing on every excursion. Minseok lapses into silence and stoicism as the two other bodyguards chat in muted voices. Often, he is privy to their soft peals of laughter, their friendly touches on each other's shoulders and elbows. They talk about local watering holes in Tokyo Minseok has never heard of and Chinese family idiosyncrasies he can't relate to. Luhan always looks so much more relaxed than he did when he came in to work.  
  
"Is Luhan-oppa seeing anybody?" Aki inquires over an unusually warm weekend. Minseok is standing next to the chair she's occupying in Sehun's study.  
  
The prince is on the other side of the room, his head bent over Advanced Mandarin coursework as Luhan and Yifan loom behind to help. Luhan points out something on the exercise sheet; Sehun slaps his forehead in frustration. Yifan is smiling at the other bodyguard over the prince's head.  
  
Minseok's throat feels a little tight when he offers a reply. "I wouldn't know, Aki-sshi."  
  
"Oh? I thought..." Her tone is strange. "Never mind." She follows Minseok's line of vision. Yifan is trying to explain something to the prince, using his hands as visual aids. Luhan is laughing at him, the way he used to laugh with Minseok.  
  
"Yifan-oppa is not seeing anybody." Aki drops this information casually. "But I don't think he'll have a problem changing that, if he wants to."  
  
"Wu mentioned he is single," Minseok mumbles. He suspects Yifan has noticed those crinkles that form at the corners of Luhan's eyes, the ones Minseok has always considered a kind of secret.  
  
It is enough to coil a knot in his stomach. Yifan places a hand on Luhan's shoulder as they bend over Sehun's homework--much like he would do to a friend. But it makes the knot spasm, and it grows larger and tighter, until it's as though Minseok is being wrung out from the inside.  
  
_So this is what it's like,_  he thinks to himself.  _When you realize you've made a horrible mistake._  
  
He hasn't been paying attention, but Aki is still speaking.  
  
"Are you listening, oppa?"  
  
Minseok apologizes quickly, head hazy, and asks her to repeat herself. She slides out of her chair, and she's looking at him in her quiet way, like she knows everything that's gone on in his mind.  
  
"I said don't wait too long, oppa. That's all."  
  
She only lets her fingers rest on his forearm for a second before she's making her way over to the prince, leaving Minseok bewildered and as jealous of Wu Yifan as ever.  
  
  
  
  
When Luhan doesn't report for duty on a frosty December morning, it's Yifan who tells Minseok he is sick.  
  
"He's got a high fever, Kim," Yifan says over the phone. "Do you know a Chinese restaurant that's open this early? I was planning on bringing him some congee before--"  
  
"Don't bother," Minseok interrupts. He's already standing up, abandoning his coffee cup. He grabs his heavy padded coat off the back of his chair and doesn't give Chanyeol an explanation as he walks towards the cafeteria's exit. "Luhan is my partner. I'll go."  
  
  
  
  
Luhan's apartment building is similar to Minseok's in that it's actually an officetel and not too far from the palace. Minseok has procured the address from the royal secretary and told her he'd be back in an hour. The prince will be getting up soon.  
  
He takes the elevator to the fifth floor and consults the slip of paper in his hand one more time before pressing the doorbell to apartment 520.  
  
"Luhan," he calls. "It's me." He almost says Kim. "Minseok."  
  
He has to press the button again, and listen to another set of  _ding-dong, ding-dong,_  before he finally hears the sounds of movement. There's the creak of a mattress and the pad of sluggish steps coming closer and closer to the door.  
  
It opens, and Luhan's on the other side, slumped and wan with fatigue. His eyes are half-lidded and his lips are pale and completely dry. Minseok heart twists.  
  
"What are you doing here?" Luhan's voice rasps, but Minseok can still make out the surprise in it.  
  
"I heard you were sick." Minseok lifts the bag of cooking ingredients and medicine he's got in one hand. "Let me in so I can set you up."  
  
Luhan shuffles over to one side so Minseok can pass. He shuts the door and just stands there, watching Minseok carefully.  
  
"I thought Yifan was coming," he says, husky from the fever.  
  
"He was." Minseok tongue rubs against the roof of his mouth. "Just...let me help you."  
  
When Luhan makes no attempt at a response, Minseok takes it as his chance to control the situation. "Go back to bed, Luhan," he tells him gently. "I'll make some porridge and bring it to you."  
  
That seems to do it. Luhan nods, just once, and turns to go. His foot catches on the hem of his pajama bottoms as he does so, and he stumbles. Before he knows what he's doing, Minseok has dropped the plastic bag on the floor and hooked his arm around Luhan's waist to catch him.  
  
"Careful," Minseok snaps, automatically taking Luhan's arm and looping it over his neck for extra support. Then he looks up--and Luhan's face is thisclose to his. Underneath the weakness of his eyelids, the Chinese bodyguard's gaze is confused. Searching, almost.  
  
This is the closest they have ever gotten to each other since the time they kissed at the ryokan.  
  
"Come on," Minseok mutters, feeling heat creep up his neck and looking quickly away. "You need to lie down." Neither Luhan's waist nor his arm leaves Minseok's grip until the latter has gotten him safely into bed.  
  
Minseok hands him two paracetamol tablets and a glass of water to wash them down. He pulls the covers up to Luhan's chin and heads to the kitchen to start on the porridge. He tries to concentrate on his mother's quickest recipe, which is feasible, thanks to the cooked rice he finds on Luhan's counter. He tries not to dwell on the way Luhan had looked at him when Minseok had tucked him in.  
  
Twenty minutes later, when the porridge is ready, Minseok goes to check on his partner and finds him fast asleep.  
  
Minseok doesn't want to wake him, so he ladles out a single serving of the porridge into a bowl and leaves the rest under a lid on the stovetop. He places the bowl on Luhan's small dining table, along with side dishes of kimchi and dried fish which he'd grabbed at the grocery store along with the other stuff. He opens drawers until he finds the one where Luhan keeps his utensils, adding a sterling silver spoon and chopsticks to the table. He leaves the rest of fever medicine just within reach.  
  
_I'll be back later,_ is what he puts in the note, just before he leaves Luhan's apartment.  
  
  
  
  
The day passes slowly.  
  
Minseok tries his best to reassure Sehun and Aki of his partner's health. He hedges questioning looks from Yifan and types out a text to Luhan, asking him how he is.  
  
Six hours later, when Minseok's screen is grimy with the thumbprints of double-, triple-, quadruple-checking, Luhan sends his reply.  
  
_Better,_  the text reads.  
  
_See you later,_ Minseok texts back. He takes Luhan's silence as acquiescence.  
  
  
  
  
It's almost 9:00 when Minseok returns to Luhan's building. It's freezing outside, and Minseok is pulling his coat tight around his body even when he's in the elevator. He's armed with more medicine--the Eastern kind, this time, in palm-sized sachets--and just enough groceries to last Luhan a few more days.  
  
He's also armed with the determination to say what he really feels.  
  
He presses the bell to 520, and this time, Luhan answers the door promptly.  
  
He still seems more tired than usual, but his face has regained its color. He's wearing the same white sleeping shirt and gray pajamas he had on this morning, and his dark bangs are flopping over his forehead. As he reaches to brush them away, his eyes flick up to meet Minseok's.  
  
"Hey." There is so much restraint in the greeting.  
  
"I'm back," Minseok says, because he can't think of anything better.  
  
"Come in," Luhan murmurs, and it all seems so familiar. Quiet conversations in the ryokan and doors slid open and shut.  
  
Minseok follows him into the kitchen and sets down the bags as Luhan prepares two glasses of water. While his back is turned, Minseok sees that the bowl of porridge he'd set on the table has been scraped clean.  
  
"You ate?" he asks, when Luhan hands him the water and leans against the counter.  
  
"Yes." Luhan moistens his lips with his tongue. "Thank you for the food."  
  
"You're welco--"  
  
"You even laid it out for me," Luhan continues. "You didn't have to do that. No one's done that for me since I lived with my parents."  
  
"You're not well," Minseok says. "You should be taken care of." He hesitates only for a moment, because Luhan is looking at him so, so cautiously. Minseok can't stop the words from tumbling out. "I should be the one to take care of you. I want to be the one."  
  
There.  
  
He said it.  
  
He isn't prepared for Luhan's not-quite-smile, which softens the corner of his mouth.  
  
"You're a good guy, Minseok." Luhan's voice is resigned. "Because we're partners, right?"  
  
But, no, no, no, this is all wrong. Minseok can see just how Luhan is struggling--the wince of sadness under the guise of a neutral expression. The special smile he's always reserved for Minseok is slipping, and it breaks Minseok's heart, because he knows he's broken Luhan's. He can't let him misunderstand.  
  
"No, not because we're partners, Luhan." His voice trembles only in the beginning. "Because I'm in love with you."  
  
Luhan's mouth parts on an exhale, and all the color he'd just recovered from sleep and proper medication is draining from his face.  
  
"W-what?" he stammers. "But you said..."  
  
Minseok puts down his glass. He hasn't even had a chance to drink from it. There's only that infuriating meter between him and Luhan, and he closes it easily.  
  
"I know what I said," Minseok mutters. "I know what I did, and how unfair it was to you. I was an asshole, Luhan--I'm still an asshole. I don't have any excuses." His breath comes out staggered. "But I'm in love with you. I love everything about you. I hate that I hurt you. I hate it _so much_. And I need you to know that."  
  
They're standing so close, Minseok could brush his knuckles against Luhan's if he wanted to, with just the slightest shift of the wrist. He doesn't dare.  
  
"I'm sorry," he finds himself saying instead. "I'm so, so sorry. I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry I blamed you, and I'm sorry it's taken this long to apologize. I'm sorry for telling you this now, when you're sick and you should be resting." He drops his eyes to the floor before willing them back up again. "I just, I wish I could take it all back."  
  
Luhan has been staring at him this whole time, his face half-pained and half...something else.  
  
Minseok doesn't know why that gives him hope. "I, I know I have no right to even ask. I know I don't deserve it at all, and I should stop making this difficult for you, but..." He forces his tongue to move, to push out the words. "Can I..."  
  
"Can you what?" Luhan whispers.  
  
"Can I..." The words are stuck.  
  
"Minseok," Luhan pleads. "Just finish the sentence."  
  
So Minseok does. "Can I have another chance, Luhan?" He braces himself for impact.  
  
The sharp intake of breath he gets in return is not a comfort. It sends a shiver down Minseok's spine and dries out the inside of his mouth.  
  
"The other day," Luhan mutters, "Yifan was telling me how complicated second chances can be..."  
  
The blood rushes to Minseok's head.  _Here it is,_  he thinks.  _The rejection I deserve._  
  
He knows he shouldn't be talking over Luhan, but he just doesn't want to hear the rest of it. "I understand." He barks out a laugh. "He's so much better for you than I am. It drives me crazy, you know, seeing you with him. I can't stand it. But if you like him--"  
  
" _No._ " Suddenly Luhan's hand is cupping the side of his face. "Don't  _do_  that."  
  
A soft gasp exits his throat at the touch. "Do what?" Minseok chokes out.  
  
"Don't give me away before we've even started!" Luhan shakes him by the jaw. "Just  _listen_ to me. You never listen to me, Minseok."  
  
Minseok clams up, his eyes urging Luhan to explain.  
  
"Yifan was telling me how complicated second chances can be, because once you give them away, you're ruined. You'll give third chances, fourth chances, fifth, sixth, and seventh chances, and before you know it, the tally's at a hundred and your heart is in a million pieces."  
  
"Luhan..."  
  
"I don't know what it is about you." His eyes drink in Minseok's face, like he's trying to find the answer. "You have this power over me, and even if I try to move on, I just  _can't_." Luhan shakes his head violently. "I haven't stopped thinking about you. I can't even look at you without remembering how good it was in Japan. How we..." He shuts his eyes. "So I try not to look. But then again, it's hard for me to look at anyone else and not see every tiny thing about them as a reminder of you."  
  
Minseok thinks of the fragility of tea whisks, the weightlessness of a cherry blossom in his palm, when he brushes their knuckles together.  
  
"Yifan shows his gums when he smiles." When Luhan's hand gives, Minseok slips his fingers into the gaps. "You know you do, too, right?"  
  
Minseok brings Luhan's hand to his lips.  
  
"You can have another chance." Luhan presses their foreheads together. "You can have them all." His voice is like the hush in the teahouse. "Even if you break my heart again, every piece of it will still belong to you."  
  
"I won't do that." Minseok places Luhan's hand on the other side of his face, pressing it there, so Luhan is cradling him. "You mean too much to me."  
  
He inches forward, and they're chest to chest. He slips his hands between Luhan's to reach the back of his neck. He cards his fingers through the soft hairs there, his chest welling up when Luhan sighs. Gently, so very gently, Minseok pulls him in.  
  
"Don't take it back again," Luhan mumbles, right before he tilts his head to let Minseok capture his mouth.  
  
  
  
  
The thud of Minseok's coat hitting the floor of Luhan's bedroom is like a single heartbeat. "You still have this," Luhan whispers against his lips. The plaid muffler hangs flat against Minseok's chest, hidden underneath his outerwear.  
  
"Yes." Minseok licks along the seam of Luhan's mouth. He gets to confess, "It reminds me of you," before Luhan is pulling off the scarf and pressing Minseok into his bed.  
  
  
  
  
In the morning, when Minseok leaves for work, they are impossibly shy. Minseok hooks their pointers together at the door. He wishes he didn't have to go.  
  
"Go on," Luhan says, rubbing his thumb against Minseok's hand. He'll need to sleep off the remnants of the fever, but Minseok thinks he looks beautiful. "Just come over after the shift. You don't have to text before you do." Luhan smiles, and it's like the sun has risen ahead of schedule. "No distractions on the job, Minseok."  
  
"This isn't a distraction for me," Minseok tells him. He kisses Luhan's temple before whispering in his ear, "This is real."  
  
  
  
  
Prince Sehun announces he is engaged exactly two years after his commencement.  
  
"It's going to be a long engagement," he tells the media at the official press conference. "My fiancée is in graduate school, and she wants to complete her thesis on the Japanese tea ceremony before we get married. She's a master, you know." Aki is beaming next to him, and the look he gives her is tender. "We are very, very happy."  
  
Behind the stage, hidden from view, Minseok and Luhan are watching like proud parents.  
  
"Can you believe it?" Luhan whispers. "He's all grown up now."  
  
"I know," Minseok whispers back. "The other day, I found him in the Crown Prince's study--he said Prince Joonmyun borrowed his issue of  _The Economist_  and he wanted it back.  _His_ issue, Luhan."  
  
His partner chuckles. "No more pool parties and naked buffets for us, huh? We've graduated to stuffy conference halls and the scintillating agendas of state visits."  
  
"It's the company that counts," Minseok tells him, and Luhan surreptitiously squeezes his hand.  
  
Next to them, Yifan murmurs, "I'm telling Chanyeol about all your PDA."  
  
Minseok slides over an expression of amusement. "I'm sorry, Wu, did you say 'Chanyeol?'" Their rapport is easy now, because Yifan isn't competition. "Since when was Park  _'Chanyeol?'_ "  
  
Yifan winks, his grin wry, and he looks straight ahead.  
  
"Don't mind him," Luhan says. "Listen, you're missing the most important part."  
  
The prince is retelling the story of his and Aki's courtship--how he'd botched their initial reunion, and how he'd made her fall in love with him, anyway, in the days, weeks, months that followed. The press is enthralled.  
  
Minseok thinks of his own time in Kyoto between winter and spring, of falling in love with Luhan through somebody else's romance. He thinks of love and duty, of how some things are just beyond his control, and how it's not about separating one from the other but striking a solid balance.  
  
Luhan's hand is still in his, so Minseok holds on tight. "Some things are just as important," he whispers, and this makes Luhan smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Very loosely inspired by the lyrics to Raleigh Ritchie's ["Bloodsport"](https://open.spotify.com/track/5XTy2Y9SVOVdlV9ScuZKBt).


End file.
